


MAXWELL SOnnERVILLE 




Class ^ T^ZMJa 

Book . S I^W^ 

Copght^i" 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



WANDERER'S LEGEND 



BY 

MAXWELL SOMMERVILLE 

PROFESSOR OF GLYPTOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ; AUTHOR 

OF "engraved gems," "sands of SAHARA," " SIAM," ETC. J 

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE SOCIBTE ACADEMIQUB 

DBS SCIENCES, ARTS ET BELLES-LETTRES DU 

DEFARTEMENT DB L'AUBE, FRANCE, ETC. 




DREXEL BIDDLE, PUBLISHER 
XonDon pbtlaOclpbia San Jfrancisco 

1902 



.^^^''Z 

^'^ ^K 



THrT_IBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copiea Received 

iU'-. 29 1902 

Copyright entry 
CVa.SS (^ XXa No 

2> L^ n o Z 

COPY 3. 



Copyright, 1902 

BY 
ANTHONY J. DREXKI. BIDDIES 



PRINTKD BY DREXKL BIDDLE, PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A. 



Prefac( 



The author refers the reader to Chapter 5, 
page s^ :— 

'* Your reverences, many incidents of events 
that I relate to you from my personal recollec- 
tion, may differ from the accounts in your 
sacred books. Yet I feel that these facts may 
interest you, coming as they do from one who 
witnessed those perilous scenes." 



Contents 



CHAP. 

INTRODUCTORY 

I. THE COUNCIL AND ITS INCIDENTS 
II. THE OLD MAN IS INVITED TO THE 

BISHOPRIC .... 
HI. THE LEGEND OF A WANDERER . 
IV. HEROD DREADS THE NEW-BORN KING 
V. AHASUERUS' PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 
VI. THE FATAL ERROR OF AHASUERUS 
VII. HOME AND FRIENDS FORSAKEN 
AHASUERUS WANDERS 
EGYPT 

EARLY CHRISTIANS 
MAHOMET 
AFRICA . 



VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 



PHOENICIA 

GREECE . 

CRETE-MINOS 

ITALY 

BYZANTINE 

CRUSADERS 



PAGE 

5 
14 

21 

33 
38 
42 

47 
50 
62 
64 
70 
76 

79 
^2 

84 

91 
98 



Contents 



XVIII. 


THE NORTHMEN . . . . 


104 


XIX. 


BRITAIN . . . . , 


IIO 


XX. 


DANEMARK 


113 


XXI. 


HOLLAND 


117 


XXII. 


THE DRUIDS 


120 


XXIII. 


FRANCE . . . . . 


126 


XXIV. 


GERMANY 


132 


XXV. 


SPAIN . . . . . 


137 


XXVI. 


BAALBEC AND PALMYRA . 


143 


XXVII. 


. PERSIA ...... 


166 


XXVIII. 


MAR SABA 


182 


XXIX. 


THEY SPOKE WITH MANY TONGUES . 


185 


XXX. 


CHINA . 


189 


XXXI. 


INDIA ...... 


193 


XXXII. 


JAPAN 


196 


XXXIII. 


RUSSIA ...... 


201 


XXXIV. 


JUDEA 


208 


XXXV. 


JUDAS ISCARIOT .... 


215 


XXXVI. 


BIRTHPLACE OF THE PRINCE OF 




' 


PEACE 


221 


XXXVII. 


AMERICA, MEXICO 


226 


XXXVIII. 


CENTRAL AMERICA AND PERU . 


235 



A Wanderer's Legend 



INTRODUCTORY 



Mar Saba, a native of Cappadocia, a devout 
spiritual man, withdrew from the world towards 
the close of the fifth century. 

About 483 A. D. he founded within a day's 
journey of Jerusalem the monastery of Deir-es- 
Sika, afterwards known as Mar Saba. 

Mar Saba was Abbot of all the Anchorites of 
Palestine ; his holiness was admired ; hundreds 
wanted to follow him and become members 
of his retreat. He was a man who understood 
his fellow-men and chose with care the most 
steadfast followers for his cloister, who, in point 
of intellectuality, w ere superior to most religious 
orders thus associated. 

5 



6 A Wanderer's Legend 

A lifelong search for engraved gems and objects 
for the study of Oriental religions has presented 
many opportunities for the cultivation of an 
acquaintance with manuscripts of which many 
have been studied with pleasure. 

Those of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries have especially proved of interest. 

Printing with movable types being still in its 
incipiency, recluses in monasteries continued to 
apply themselves diligently to writing carefully, 
and illuminating documents on parchment. 
Some centuries earlier, men had written or 
engraved records on the horns of animals, and 
those inscriptions were at times artistically 
done. 

Among other interesting places visited on 
such expeditions, the monastery of Mar Saba in 
Syria is associated in my memory with my 
having found the material for this legend. 

The monks, while showing the treasures of 
their library, were rather reluctant in allowing 
that one should handle and examine thoroughly 
their manuscripts. 

Some years previously they had been robbed 



A Wanderer's Legend 7 

by Arabs who too highly appreciated their store 
of* parchments. 

Among others they mentioned one of the six- 
teenth century, beautifully illuminated, entitled, 

DISSERTATIO HISTORICA, 
DE 

JUDiEO NON MORTALI. 

The text of this manuscript was in French 
with Latin notes. 

One of the brethren, evidently a bookworm, 
assured me that as its theme of a Jew forever 
wandering had created much interest, there 
certainly existed other records of incidents in his 
wonderful and interminable life ; he even in- 
formed me that travelers had spoken of seeing 
such a parchment in India. 

Another year, investigations were continued in 
that interesting country, India. That journey 
brought me later on to Darjeeling, one of the 
last places in which to expect to find such 
treasures. However, in Darjeeling, the docu- 
ment was discovered, from the recollection of 
which is recorded this legend. 



8 A Wanderer's Legend 

Many stations in India, where the heat is 
intense, are blessed with hill or mountainside 
resorts where man may restore his exhausted 
energies and for a while enjoy a change of 
temperature. 

When wearied by the continued oppressive 
heat of Calcutta, crossing the broad Ganges and 
mounting by a toy-like railway, a delightful re- 
treat was found on the hills at Darjeeling in view 
of Kanchanjanga. The veranda of the lodging 
commanded a view of the base of the natural 
amphitheatre, one of whose upper terraces was 
for the time our resting-place. 

The acquaintance of an antiquary and a 
Buddhist priest who was preparing a friend to 
accompany him on a visit to the Grand Llama in 
Thibet enabled me to make important acqui- 
sitions and obtain valuable information. With 
this erudite Buddhist the great bazaar was visited. 
In that peculiar commercial centre, dealers in 
antiquities of every description assembled on 
certain days, coming from every direction in the 
country around and representing as many dis- 
tinct types, yet all known by the common term 



A Wanderer's Legend 9 

of** Hill people." This motley gathering offered 
for sale a variety of unique ornaments seldom to 
be found in Europe. After several unimportant 
visits and the examination of curious but un- 
interesting objects, finally the shamble of an 
Arab dealer was entered ; he had lived among 
the Copts on the Nile. He was very courteous, 
and learning that I particularly occupied myself 
with the collection of such objects as might 
illustrate Oriental religions, he ransacked his 
chests, showing me many altar draperies and 
temple ornaments ; a ring attracted my attention, 
its inscription in Arab, La ilaha illa-allahu 
Muhammadu rasulu-1-lahi, etc. There is no 
God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet, 
etc., etc. 

The Arab remarked, " That ring pleases you ; 
it has an inscrif)tion sacred to my co-religionists ; 
my conscience will not permit me to sell it ; as 
I see that you are an enthusiast, you shall take 
the ring, it is yours without price." 

He then proceeded to exhibit a number of 
Arab manuscripts. Speaking at the same time 
about his religion, he said, " They who believe 



lo A Wanderer's Legend 

in that mediator, Mahomet, know more of Christ 
than you may suppose." 

The Arab continued as one having confidence 
in his own opinions and seemed desirous to state 
them. 

" Many curious and interesting legends have 
been carefully preserved and handed down 
through Musselmans. 

Although Mahomet appeared about seven 
centuries after the advent of the usually ac- 
knowledged Redeemer of man, we earnest fol- 
lowers of Mahomet believe that he came in 
special mercy to millions of devout Moslems. 

We realize that our prophet has led us 
nearer to God. Our chronicles include inci- 
dents in the life of Christ. I must admit," said 
he, "that some of them are apocryphal; you 
Christians regard them as romances ; yet you 
generally appreciate them because they are en- 
tertaining and often historic. You must admit," 
said he, " that some of their most peculiar tradi- 
tions do contribute otherwise unrecorded facts." 

After a while the Arab produced a parchment 
manuscript which he seemed equally unwilling 



A Wanderer's Legend ii 

to part with ; I began to wonder how the man 
was to make any trade, for he continued by 
praying me not to offer any price. He stood 
there before me reverently holding the parch- 
ment in his hands ; it was, however, merely the 
reverence that a collector inherits who dabbles 
in the purchase and sale of such documents. 
Before unfolding it the old man began by rela- 
ting to me the incidents leading to his possession 
of the legend which has furnished the romantic 
story so simply narrated. 

At last he reluctantly permitted me to take it 
in hand. A man at four-score years is old and 
wrinkled, this manuscript almost four hundred 
years old showed its age only in its darkened 
parchment, here and there a curled or ragged 
corner and an occasional blurred line or two of 
text. 

I found it deeply interesting and at first sup- 
posed it might be one of those the monks at 
Mar Saba spoke of, as in French of the fifteenth 
century with Latin notes and many illuminations 
which had been stolen from their library. As 
this was not illuminated in the manner described 



12 A Wanderer's Legend 

by them, and though in French and Latin, it had 
copious notes in Coptic which, together with 
the fact that the Arab had resided on the Nile 
and had purchased it of a Coptic priest, proved 
conclusively that it had never been on the 
shelves in Mar Saba. 

Noticing the interest with which I studied it, 
the old anitiquary promised me not only the 
privilege of looking it over but offered to aid me 
in deciphering the Coptic notes. With his con- 
sent I then noted down the tenor of the follow- 
ing legend which is here given in my own 
words. 

The manuscript proved to have been written 
by a monk who attended an important conclave 
of ecclesiastics as secretary to a bishop who was 
a delegate to an assembly hereinafter described. 
This monk was a French priest of the Roman 
Church who, after filling stations in Germany, 
Spain and Morocco, was with his bishop sent to 
Egypt where during six years they had resided 
and performed spiritual work among the Copts. 
This monk had profited by instructions given 
him by the Christian Copts who were celebrated 



A Wanderer's Legend 13 

as recorders and secretaries. He had mastered 
several languages ; it is evident that the entire 
legend in French, Latin and Coptic was his 
work. With close attention at the conclave he 
recorded every incident of that interesting occa- 
sion, carefully registering the marvelous recitals 
of the aged man who entertained the ecclesias- 
tics with the history of his life. The notes in 
Coptic were added immediately on their return 
to their stations at Koptos and Negada among 
the Copts. 



CHAPTER I 

THE COUNCIL AND ITS INCIDENTS 

In the sixteenth century again, there had 
arisen schisms, discontent in the Roman Catho- 
lic Church which the important Diet of Speyer 
could not arrange to the satisfaction of all inter- 
ested in the welfare of their individual sections. 
Nor were all content with the action of that 
assembly having passed a decree against all ec- 
clesiastical changes ; in fact many divines, who 
had not attended the Diet at Speyer, considered 
themselves more conservative and sought a con- 
vention where they might assert their rights. 

These parties at variance and their many dif- 
ferences of opinion led certain dignitaries in 
France, Germany and Venice to resolve to come 
together in general conference. Some had al- 
ready opposed the League of Cambray under 
Pope Juhus II. The Venitians particularly felt 
that they had been wronged. Those proposing 

H 



A Wanderer's Legend 15 

a conference sympathized with the Venitians and 
had never forgotten that Pope Julius and Louis 
XII of France had conspired with Maximilian in 
what was known as the League of Cambray, the 
object of which was to divide up Venice among 
them. 

They remembered that the Papal power had 
not properly sought the interest of the Church, 
but selfishly had taken every worldly indulgence 
for their own gratification. 

Bishops and Abbots grew to be powerful 
temporal princes and neglected spiritual duties. 

In the month of May, 1529, ecclesiastics by 
every available conveyance, on saddle, by post 
and even afoot, impelled by the grievances of 
the Church, might be seen crossing the Pegnitz 
from the Lawrence side to the Sebald quarter in 
Nuremberg enroute to the Bishopric of the 
Romanesque Church, St. Sebaldus of the elev- 
enth century. They were delegates to a con- 
clave to be held at that city. The private 
assemblies were to be held in the Archbishop's 
palace. 

After a preliminary meeting for organization 



l6 A Wanderer's Legend 

at the Bishopric, the Moderating Theologian re- 
quested the delegates to assemble in the Church 
of St. Sebaldus. 

On the second day of the conference the 
clerical delegates assembled in the west choir of 
the Loffelholz chapel in the church already 
selected for the services. 

After a short mass, the Moderating Theolo- 
gian mounted a chaise or pulpit not in the 
chancel but conveniently near to all his hearers. 
He spoke earnestly to them, explaining the 
differences which had brought them together, 
dwelling on the example of Christ and on many 
of the final scenes of his memorable life ; he re- 
minded them of the bearing of the cross, the 
Redeemer's falling under his burden on the way 
to Calvary, and finally the closing scenes of his 

hfe! 

The Theologian said with impressive voice, 
" Let us realize these sacrifices made for us ; 
let us lay hold on the truth and be strong in our 
faith striving to serve the Lord ! " 

After the Theologian had spoken in this strain 
for some time an aged man entered, who at first 




CHURCH OF ST. SEBALDUS. 



A Wanderer's Legend 17 

did not divert the attention of the audience from 
the discourse. Naturally his peculiar appear- 
ance soon attracted many eyes. 

His flowing gray beard covering his shoulders 
and breast, descended below the girdle that 
bound his mantle at his waist to his emaciated 
form. 

His patriarchal countenance seemed not to 
regard the assembly ; his eyes were fixed on the 
speaker; he approached and leaned against a 
column near to the pulpit, where he gave marked 
attention to every word of the discourse ; each 
time the name of Jesus was pronounced, his 
countenance was visibly so much moved that he 
swayed his head from side to side with emotion, 
and seemed to seek relief by placing his atten- 
uated hand on his heart. At times he even 
struck his breast as with remorse ; his every 
gesture and sad countenance expressed so much 
sorrow, that the Archbishop finding that he him- 
self was not giving the attention he desired to 
the Theologian's sermon, beckoned to one 
of his attendants to come to him and directed 
him to observe attentively the " old man," and 



]8 A Wanderer's Legend 

instructed him that when the service should 
close and the stranger pass out, he should ap- 
proach him and ask him courteously to wait a 
few moments until one in authority should 
speak with him. In case, said he, that the old 
man consents you will conduct him to the 
bishop's palace. 

Undisturbed by the presence of the old man, 
the preacher continued his discourse ; he called 
their attention to the closing years of the fif- 
teenth century and these important days of 
religious progress of the sixteenth century. 
That progress was evidenced by Martin Luther 
boldly attacking the errors of the Church and of 
the times. 

" We regret to acknowledge, that with reason 
he has taken exception to the profligate lives of 
the men to whom the Church and our oaths of 
submission compel us to regard as models ; and 
remembering that we are the servants of Christ 
and that we owe obedience to Christ's repre- 
sentative on earth. If as Martin Luther has 
demonstrated, the vicegerents of Christ have 
really found their pleasures in the things of this 



A Wanderer's Legend 19 

world and have set us ungodly examples, for- 
getting whom they represent, let us beware and 
follow directly the pure precepts of Emanuel. 

Nor have we followed the divine example in 
doing unto others as we would be done by ; we 
have condoned the persecution of the Jews ; was 
not our Master an Israelite? let us see more 
justice dealt to that downtrodden race. 

There is Columbia discovered ! Mexico, the 
islands of the Western Indies, and Peru. We 
must send the message of our Redeemer to these 
lands and plant our Church there ! Who shall 
take this work in hand ? Who shall replace our 
protectors the Medicis ? All these questions are 
for your consideration. 

I hesitate, and yet I venture to say to you, that 
I am not astonished that Martin Luther protests ; 
I believe him to be a true Christian ; but remem- 
ber united we must stand ! We must be pre- 
pared to resist his opposition ! 

Not only Martin Luther, there are other great 
opponents — powerful and dangerous. Ulrich 
Zwingli recently preaching and arousing the 
faithful in Ziirich and Berne. Likewise there is 



20 A Wanderer's Legend 

Guillaume Farel, stirring up with great success 
the faithful in and about Geneva. 

We meet in this conclave to prepare all our 
measures, that v/e may be able to retain our 
sheep undiminished in numbers in the fold of 
the Church of Saint Peter. Thus may we con- 
tend with the great wave of opposition which 
now threatens the Church of Rome on every 
hand ! " 



CHAPTER II 

THE OLD MAN IS INVITED TO THE BISHOPRIC 

The Moderator in closing said, " The remarks 
I have made are appropriate to the occasion of 
to-day's service in our Church, which you know 
is the festival of the Three Kings." 

Evidently the old man had paid close attention 
all this time, for when he saw that the Theologian 
was closing his discourse, and before the prelates 
had risen from their stalls, he moved quietly 
with dignity away from the audience. Passing 
through the side nave of the Church, approach- 
ing the public square without, he went at a 
quickened pace, as though he had loitered too 
long when on an important errand. It seemed 
as though he would now regain the time he had 
stopped in this sacred place ; he proceeded not 
as one who feared the gaze of man, but as 
though he would be on his way. Yet he re- 
garded with interest the architecture of the 

21 



22 A Wanderer's Legend 

edifice he was leaving. Young people and 
idlers were awaiting the exit of the Assembly- 
men. At first they neither stared at nor annoyed 
the strange old man, but soon after he passed 
from the portal of the church, and stopped to 
look at its ornamentation, all eyes were turned 
on him, and quickly he was so surrounded that 
the Bishop's secretary, with difficulty, overtook 
him ; he, however, made his way through the 
throng, and touching the old man's arm said, 
" Pardon, sire, my master, a holy man, bids you 
come to the Bishopric to partake of some re- 
freshment, and prays that you will grant him an 
interview." The old man placed his hand on 
the attendant's arm and replied, " Say to your 
master I will come ; in fact I shall go with you 
with pleasure, and we shall see what your holy 
nlan desires of me." 

Slowly they took their way through the town, 
and arriving at the Bishopric the old man was 
conducted into a room where many prelates were 
already assembled. The Bishop saluted him 
respectfully, saying, " My friend, of what country 
are you ? " 



A Wanderer's Legend 23 

" Sire/' replied the old man, " that this is a 
difficult question to answer, you will readily see, 
when an opportunity is afforded me to answer 
your interrogation more fully." 

The Bishop and all those who were present, 
seeing that there was something extraordinary 
about this man, w^ere eager to hear whatever he 
might be willing to communicate. 

The Moderating Theologian, divining that the 
old man had some secret on his heart, which he 
would be loath to reveal, addressed him with 
these words of encouragement, " Fear not, my 
old friend, I and all this company here assembled 
are disposed to afford you pleasure, and if pos- 
sible comfort you ; we therefore desire to hear 
whatever you may have to say." 

After some moments of hesitation, with a deep 
sigh, the old man replied, " I have accepted 
your invitation to come before you to-day ; sad 
experience has taught me not to decline the 
friendly offers of human beings. I find myself 
overcome with emotion. I cannot understand 
why I entered that chapel to-day. Certainly it 
was not of my own volition. Throughout my 



2 j. A Wanderer's Legend 

life an unseen power has compelled me to go 
here and diere ; often after reflection I recognize 
an all-directing hand. The discourse of your 
Theologian has powerfully impressed me ; I have 
been moved by your prelate's just allusion to the 
treatment of my suffering people. He has also 
several times during his remarks referred to one 
whose souvenir is ever in my mind, the Divine 
Man whom I neglected. 

" You have perhaps noted my attitude as I 
have looked around on the decorations of your 
place of worship ; that life-sized figure in stone 
of Christ being crowned with thorns ; so lifelike 
that he seemed to be conscious of my presence ; 
the bas-reliefs and on the chancel wall that 
picture of the Last Judgment, reminding me of 
the day when eventually I shall be heard, and 
perhaps condemned. 

Pictures, statues, decorated windows, their 
subjects Christ — everywhere Christ. The view 
of all of which has been as poignards in my soul. 
Tears were brought to my eyes, as I looked upon 
that window in St. Sebaldus, where, in rich 
colors, Christ is depicted bearing the Cross." 



A Wanderer's Legend 25 

The pathos of that old man's voice reached 
every soul, and made men's hearts to thrill 
throughout that ecclesiastical assembly. 

The old man stood there a picture, his aged 
eyes looked out from their deep recesses with 
tender melancholy ; his was the countenance of 
one whom trials and world-wide experience had 
rendered sad, yet who turned with sweetness 
and gentleness upon those who thus met him 
with friendliness and courtesy. 

He resumed, " I entered that church of St. 
Sebaldus rather out of curiosity, which, however, 
may perhaps afford me an opportunity of con- 
versing with sympathetic men. 

" It is human sympathy my heart doth crave. 
Though destiny, during long periods, hath 
denied me the consolation of kind words, during 
ages I have existed on the hospitality of men of 
all nations. I have never asked for food, the 
world has always afforded me what has sus- 
tained my life. Your excellency has asked me, 
what is my country ? I am the son of a me- 
chanic, a carpenter of Jerusalem ; I learned and 
practiced the trade of a shoemaker in the 



26 A Wanderer's Legend 

ancient city, but through an incident, during 
more than fourteen hundred years I have been 
impelled to wander everywhere throughout the 
world, and behold I am still walking, without 
seeing any prospect of an end to my sufferings. 
On many occasions I have encountered great 
perils, but never have met death. 

Alas, the deep regret of my interminable 
life attends me in all my wanderings. I execrate 
myself for having once refused the request of 
one who, I now am convinced, suffered for all 
mankind." 

The Theologian, hearing this, arose and with 
renewed interest requested the aged wanderer to 
tell -them more of his remarkable career. 

The old man replied with emotion, '' When it 
will be the pleasure of your reverences, I will 
relate the history of my life." 

The Bishop in a short address thanked the 
old man for his entertainment, and invited him 
to take a place at table near to him. 

The repast finished, the delegates were again 
desirous of hearing the stranger's narrative. 

He also being refreshed began : 



CHAPTER III 

THE LEGEND OF A WANDERER 

" I AM born of the tribe of Naphtali, my name 
is Ahasuerus. When our King Herod com- 
manded the death of his two sons, Alexander 
and Aristobule during the reign of the Emperor 
Augustus, my father followed the trade of a 
carpenter, my mother worked on the garments 
of the Levites, which she knew how to em- 
broider to perfection. 

My parents had me educated to read and 

write in Hebrew and Parthian. When I was 

more advanced in years they gave me to read 

the Books of the Law, and those of the 

Prophets. Besides these books my father had a 

large old manuscript bound in parchment, which 

he had inherited from his ancestors ; there I 

found many interesting facts which concerned 

my ancestry and the history of our people. 

As you all know, our first ancestors, having 

27 



28 A Wanderer's Legend 

sinned, were expelled from the terrestrial Para- 
dise. After they had two sons Cain and Abel, 
they conceived the idea that one of those chil- 
dren would become the Messiah, and pardon all 
sins, and that thus they would be forgiven for 
their error in the Garden, and that their disobe- 
dience would be forgotten. Their hope however 
soon vanished, when Cain killed his brother 
Abel, for whose death Adam grieved during a 
hundred years. 

At that time they having had several other 
children, sons and daughters, Adam seeing that 
the time of his death was approaching, called his 
young son Seth, and told him to go to the 
Garden of Eden, and speak to the Angel Ga- 
briel, whom he would find on guard there, with 
a flaming sword, and demand of him permission 
that he (Adam) might once more enter into that 
charming abode, before he should die. Seth 
who did not know anything about his parents 
former residence there, repaired to the Garden, 
found the angel and delivered Adam's message. 

Gabriel replied, ' Neither your father nor your 
descendants will ever enter into this earthly 



A Wanderer's Legend 29 

paradise; but if you will live godly lives I 
promise you what is far better. Ye shall all 
find rest in the Celestial Paradise.' 

Having thus spoken, Gabriel permitted Seth 
to behold from a distance, that charming place 
of beauty where his father and mother had lived, 
and where they had committed the sin of dis- 
obedience, for which they had been banished. 
When Seth had seen this charming abode he 
was surprised at it, he was overcome with such 
great sadness that he began to weep. His grief 
was very keen. Seth started away, but the 
Angel Gabriel called him back and said, ' Your 
father will probably soon die ; take these three 
seeds of the fruit of the " forbidden tree," and 
when your father is no more, place these three 
seeds under his tongue, and bury them with his 
body.' Seth went away and he accomplished 
that which the angel had commanded him. 

You must know that in the same spot where 
Adam was buried, some time afterwards there 
sprung up and grew three trees, which in time 
became higher and larger, until they bore their 
fruit, which was so beautiful to look at that one 



30 A Wanderer's Legend 

could not desire a more agreeable sight. But 
this fruit had a bitter taste, like the gourds of 
the desert, and was full of sand. And that is 
why these trees have remained there, and no 
one has disturbed them. 

When our ancestors were led slaves into 
Egypt, Moses entered into a dense forest where 
he spoke with God. It is in this forest that 
he procured his rod, with which he performed 
many miracles in the presence of Pharaoh. 

He changed his rod into a serpent, he opened 
the Red Sea at Azirut, making a passage through 
for our children. He caused water to issue from 
a great rock to quench the thirst of my emigra- 
ting race, and performed many other miracles. 

In these years the population of the East in- 
creased rapidly, and the members of the different 
families formed tribes. They soon became the 
nuclei of nations. When our fathers arrived in 
the promised land, they began to build cities 
and great castles to defend themselves against 
their enemies who already had arisen, — such was 
human nature ! 

You must know that the trees of which we 



A Wanderer's Legend 31 

have before made mention were still in the same 
place ; they were on the hill on which the City 
of Jerusalem was built. These trees remained 
there outside of the city barriers until after the 
death of King Saul, when the Prophet, King 
David, caused them to be surrounded by walls. 
He also built near to them a residence for him- 
self, that he might daily see their fruit, which he 
considered extremely beautiful, for he was heard 
to say, ' I can see nothing more charming.' 

One day King David having gathered three 
of these beautiful apples, he cut open one after 
another. In the first, there was much sandy 
earth ; within the skin of the second, he found 
written cashbat; in the third which he cut in 
two, he observed in the pulpy interior a faint 
cloudy representation of the Crucifixion of 
Christ, which had been predicted by Solomon. 

After various wars between the kings of Israel 
and other countries the city of Jerusalem was 
finally completely destroyed. 

The palace of David having been ruined sev- 
eral times was rebuilt, and the three trees now 
stood at some distance from the city. The 



32 A Wanderer's Legend 

chateau remained until A ntipater, father of King 
Herod, caused it to be razed to the ground in 
Anno Mundo, 3939. 

Antipater sacrificed this palace to enlarge the 
terrace on which he intended to make the public 
execution of malefactors, and this was known as 
the place of a skull — Golgotha. 

In the city of Jerusalem, near to the temple, 
there then was a fine view of the three trees 
from a high wall on which I often seated myself, 
and more than a thousand times have I played 
with my childhood companions in the shadow 
of those famous trees, some of the wood of 
which was used to construct the Cross on which 
later on Jesus Christ was crucified." 

Ahasuerus having now spoken for more than 
an hour his recitation was adjourned for the 
morrow. 



CHAPTER IV 

HEROD DREADS THE NEW-BORN KING 

The following day after the business session, 
the old man resumed his narrative. 

" Reverend sirs, your Theologian in his 
discourse yesterday, alluded to the * festival of 
the three kings' ; that reminds me of my youth, 
I remember well when those three monarchs 
came through our country seeking a new-born 
King. 

My parent hearing of it, looked after them, 
and recognized the father Joseph as a former 
companion and fellow-workman. 

When it will be your pleasure, I will again 
speak of that incident when I refer to my visits 
to Syria. 

Soon the news of the infant King spread, 

and there came rumors that the King Herod was 

causing to be searched throughout the land for 

33 



34 A Wanderer's Legend 

Jesus the new-born King. Having been un- 
successful, Herod became irritated, because three 
potentates who had promised to visit him, had 
neglected to present themselves. The king be- 
came so enraged that he then gave an order to 
strangle all newly-born male infants up to the 
age of three years, not even sparing his own son, 
hoping thus to entrap Jesus in the net which he , 
was spreading out, and then by getting rid of 
him always to remain king. 

At this moment Joseph, the father of Jesus, was 
inspired to fly into Egypt with the child and the * 
mother. He departed in great grief, going with- 
out saying good-bye to any one. Elizabeth, 
Mary's cousin, also received instruction to go 
with John the Baptist. She had not much time 
to fly, for Herod's soldiers were stationed on 
every side, committing horrible carnage on the 
innocent little children. Elizabeth flew from her 
house, and reaching an abrupt hill, beyond the 
city, she passed into a deep fissure, which led 
into a cave, where she hid herself and her son. 
Zacharias also concealed himself in the Temple 
of Solomon. Shortly afterwards the soldiers 



A Wanderer's Legend 35 

found him there, and demanded of him where 
were his wife and son ; Zacharias repHed, ' I 
know nothing of them ' ; he was cruelly massa- 
cred ; his blood, which spurted on the altar of the 
temple, could never be effaced. At this time my 
mother had a son of two years in her arms, 
which she bathed with her tears. Three soldiers 
entered our poor tenement, tore the boy from 
her arms, stabbed it in my presence, threw it on 
the ground, and went unconcernedly on their 
wa}\ 

Some time after this horrible carnage King 
Herod was laid low with a terrible malady. 
Such a stench from his body pervaded the air, 
that one could with difficulty remain near him to 
serve him. Worms issued and gnawed him. 
which little by little brought him to the point of 
death. Besides this he had such a heat in his 
body, that it seemed to him his intestines were 
being consumed. 

He was enraged with hunger, he tried every 
imaginable remedy ; nothing could comfort him 
or assuage h"is thirst. Seeing at last that he was 
about to die, he called his Prime Minister to him 



36 A Wanderer's Legend 

and gave him a secret order, that all the principal 
grandees of the kingdom should be put to death, 
so that there should be great mourning through- 
out Judea as soon as he should expire. 

His orders were not executed, no attention 
was paid to his commands, for all the people 
throughout the kingdom experienced great joy 
at being deHvered from such a monster. 

When this unnatural king was dead, Elizabeth, 
with her son, came out of the cave and returned 
to her home. 

On being informed of the death of her hus- 
band, she fell fainting on the ground. Her 
friends believed her dead, because during three 
days she remained insensible ; everybody went to 
see her ; I also with my father. At last while 
we were preparing to part with her, she re- 
turned to consciousness, and commenced to 
groan and lament the death of her husband, 
Zacharias. 

Shortly after Joseph, Mary, and the child 
Jesus also returned, and resided in the little 
town of Nazareth. They almost daily came to 
Jerusalem, and several times I saw the child 



A Wanderer's Legend 37 

Jesus with his mother in the Temple of 
Solomon." 

The old man now took a short period of 
repose. 



. .\vW.v ■',•».> A 



CHAPTER V 

AHASUERUS' PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 

When Ahasuerus had recovered his breath, 
the assembly, always very attentive to his words, 
requested him, through the Theologian, to con- 
tinue his discourse, that they might hear much 
more of the narrative that had proved so interest- 
ing to them. 

" Your reverences, many incidents of events 
that I relate to you from my personal recollec- 
tion, may differ from the accounts in your 
sacred books. Yet I feel that these facts may 
interest you, coming as they do from one who 
witnessed those perilous scenes. 

St. John the Baptist was no sooner dead than 
Jesus Christ took his place, and began to preach. 
I myself heard him more than thirty times in 
villages about Jerusalem. He called to his com- 
panionship serious men, who became his follow- 
ers and his disciples. In their presence he per- 

3-8 



A Wanderer's Legend 39 

formed many miracles. I saw him cure the 
bUnd ; I was there when he raised Lazarus from 
the dead ; I ate of the loaves of bread and the 
fishes, that were so miraculously provided for all 
that were assembled on that occasion. It was 
indeed a supernatural work, for I myself had 
about as much as a whole fish, and bread in pro- 
portion; think of it, we were about five thou- 
sand persons, and after we were fully satisfied, 
they still filled many baskets, which were carried 
away to be given to the poor. 

From this time the priests of the law, seeing 
that Holy Man's influence on the people, re- 
solved among themselves to seize Jesus; but 
they could not see in what manner they might 
succeed, for they feared the people, who were 
greatly carried away with Christ's gentleness and 

loveliness. 

When the day of the palms arrived, and Christ 
made his entrance into Jerusalem, the people, to 
do honor to him, and express their affection, cut 
branches of palms and other trees, and even 
spread their garments on the streets through 
which he should pass, and they cried, ' Saluta- 



40 A Wanderer's Legend 

tions,' ' Glory to the Son of David ! ' ' Blessed 
be he who comes in the name of the Lord ! ' 
The acclamations of the people embittered more 
and more the enemies of Jesus, and afterwards, 
much to the surprise of many, came Judas, one 
of his disciples, and sold his master for the value 
of thirty deniers. 

Those in authority were so incensed, that 
they decided no longer to allow Jesus Christ to 
gain the favor of the people. His enemies, 
therefore, not Hstening to Pilate, took the power 
into their own hands and condemned Jesus. 

At about the eleventh hour I heard a great 
noise in the street ; I ran to the door to see 
what was the cause of it. I saw a great many 
people who said that they had taken Jesus from 
the Garden of Gethsemane, and that they would 
not leave him until they saw him condemned. 

As soon as I heard that, I took my lantern 
and went with the throng to see what was going 
on, expecting that something extraordinary 
would take place, which in fact did occur. 

When we arrived where they had found Jesus, 
he had only pronounced a few words, when we 



A Wanderer's Legend 41 

were all thrown to the ground as by a thunder- 
bolt ; a man standing near me was thrown over 
my lantern and it was broken in many pieces. 
They then seized Jesus, bound him and led him 
before the High Priest; there he was closely 
examined, again they found no proof against 
him. 

I then returned to the house to take some 
rest. In the morning I no sooner was awake 
than one of the neighbors came to tell me that 
Judas Iscariot had hung himself. I went to the 
place where he was hanging : never shall I for- 
get his distorted countenance. Of the genealogy 
and history of this bad man, I will relate you 
more, when I return to his country." 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FATAL ERROR OF AHASUERUS 

" Your eminences, alas, the enemies of Christ 
succeeded in securing the condemnation of your 
Saviour. 

JjC 3j» 3jC 5JJ ^ *JC 

The time then approached when Jesus Christ 
should be crucified. It was evident that the city 
was in trouble ; the people ran in the streets in 
every direction, and as there was not time to 
lose, workmen in the city were ordered to make 
a cross. 

The sentence having been given that Jesus 
should be crucified, they cut sufficient wood 
from the three trees of which I have already 
spoken, those trees which grew from the seeds 
that had been placed under the tongue of Adam 
after his death. 

When the Cross was finished his enemies were 

impatient to complete their evil work. The 

42 



A Wanderer's Legend 43 

Cross was placed on the shoulders of Jesus to be 
carried to the Mount of Calvary, which was the 
place where malefactors were brought to death. 
I was at my door and saw the people running. 
I heard them say they were going to crucify 
Jesus. Shocked though I was to hear this news, 
I could not restrain my curiosity, and for the 
peace of my family I dared not show any sym- 
pathy for the Messiah, of whose innocence I was 
convinced in my heart. 

Yet I took my infant child in my arms to let 
him see the crowd. I saw Jesus coming towards 
me, staggering under the heavy weight of the 
Cross ; he came tottering before my door, and 
looking tenderly and with suffering into my face, 
he signified that he wished to rest himself a little 
there. Taking this for a grand affront, I pro- 
nounced those bitter words to Jesus Christ, 
* Go ! — go on ! — go ! get away from my door, 
you will injure me should the people see that I 
befriend you ! ' 

Knowing that I was observed by all around 
me, I spoke more cruelly to him than my heart 
prompted me to do. I said, ' I will not have a 



44 A Wanderer's Legend 

rascal like you repose here ! ' then Jesus looked 
at me with a sad countenance, and reprovingly 
replied, * I will go, and I shall find repose, — thou 
shalt walk and walk continually ; and thou shalt 
never cease thy wandering ; thou shalt walk as 
long as the earth remains, until the last day of 
judgment. Then shalt thou see me seated at 
the right hand of my father, to judge the twelve 
tribes, and the Jews who are about to crucify 
me.' 

Immediately I was awe-stricken. I laid my 
child on the ground and involuntarily followed 
Christ. I soon saw a kind-hearted woman wipe 
the sweat from the face of Jesus with a linen 
cloth. A little further, on, I saw Mary and other 
women who were weeping. Then came a work- 
man, hurrying along with a hamper containing 
nails and a hammer. He approached Mary and 
shaking one of the nails in her face cried, ' Be- 
hold, woman, it is with these your son shall be 
nailed-! ' 

I next went with the workman to the moun- 
tain. When we arrived there, he took the 
Cross, raised it up and placed it in the ground, 



A Wanderer's Legend 45 

and while the attendants of the executioner 
stripped Jesus, this workman drove large nails 
into the Cross. 

Yet the cruel people did not turn away their 
eyes from such a sad spectacle ; many laughed 
and even mocked. Mary took the cloth from 
her head and placed it around the loins of Jesus ; 
then he was crucified. The Cross was placed in 
the same spot where Adam had been buried. 
Yes, the Cross was placed just where the wood 
had been cut from the three trees of which I 
have spoken. 

After Jesus had pronounced some words, he 
died. Then the air became stifling ; the sky 
obscured ; there arose a great tempest ; the dead 
came out of their tombs ; the rocks were rent 
asunder and the earth opened at the foot of the 
Cross. Longin came with a lance and pierced 
the side of Jesus, who was dead, yet blood is- 
sued from the wound, and that blood trickled 
down into the opening in which the Cross was 
placed ; that precious blood bathed the remains 
of Adam and Eve, who had been interred there, 
and who long since had been reduced to ashes. 



46 A Wanderer's Legend 

Longin was a one-eyed man. When he pierced 
the side of Jesus Christ, some of the blood spat- 
tered on his hand ; he was a heathen, and feehng 
that there was something in his bhnd eye, he 
rubbed it with his bloody hand, and almost im- 
mediately recovered his sight. He soon after 
repented, was converted to Christianity, baptized, 
and died a martyr." 



CHAPTER VII 

HOME AND FRIENDS FORSAKEN : AHASUERUS 
WANDERS 

Ahasuerus now breathed painfully, his coun- 
tenance betrayed great emotion ; the Theologian 
offered him something to drink ; while he took 
some repose, the assembled company discussed 
his narrative. 

After further request from the Theologian, 
Ahasuerus recommenced. 

" As soon as Jesus Christ was dead, I went up 
the hill of the Mount of Olives, to look down on 
the city of Jerusalem. I felt I must see that 
loved city once more. Involuntarily I was im- 
pelled to turn my back on home, relations, 
friends, and commence my wandenng. I knew 
not where I was going. Across plains, through 
valleys, over mountains, at sea, wherever I have 
been until now — when I have spoken with you, 
I have not really known repose." In making a 

47 



48 A Wanderer's Legend 

profound salutation to the assembly he said, 
" Your excellencies, I feel at times as if I were 
on ardent coals, even when I seat myself, my 
legs move involuntarily ; sleep I take little ; all 
these centuries I have followed the invisible 
power, which has always driven me on, ever on." 

The Theologian after some appreciative re- 
marks to Ahasuerus, thanking him for this por- 
tion of his extraordinary narrative, addressed the 
conclave ; he advocated the importance of un- 
ceasing attention to the missions of the Church, 
saying, " Our Master, Christ, has commanded us 
to reach every land with the news of his pro- 
pitiation. . 

Shall we not closely examine this remarkable 
man and learn from him something about all the 
nations of the earth, that he has visited ? " 

After courteously explaining to Ahasuerus 
the reason for asking this information from him, 
the Theologian suggested that if the aged man 
would grant them an abstract account of many 
of his wanderings, taking an occasional inter- 
mission for rest, he might accomplish a great 
service for the assembled ecclesiastics. 



A Wanderer's Legend 49 

After some conversation Ahasuerus con- 
tinued, •' With reluctance I think of my early 
history, much of which now is yours, still more 
do I hesitate in replying to your request to 
describe to you the wide world I have so 
thoroughly seen. 

Though it has been my custom to avoid the 
public gaze, and seldom to respond to invitations 
like this, upon reflection I will without hesitation 
render you a further account of my remarkable 
life. 

You will remember I turned my back on that 
cruel crucifixion, and my nati\e city, as I started 
on my eventful career." 



CHAPTER VIII 

EGYPT 

" I DESCENDED through my native Judea to 
Joppa ; there not finding an opportunity by 
ship, I took the old main road through Azotus, 
Ascalon and Gaza to the southeast, by Horeb, in 
sight of Mount Sinai in Arabia. 

I then turned my course to the northwest, 
through Pelusium. Already regretting that I 
could not remain in my native land, I entered 
Egypt. Egypt, not under its own rule, but 
dominated by Roman imperial power. 

. Shortly after commencing my career in strange 
countries, the wonderful sights and the novelty 
of changing scenes for a while diverted my mind 
from the realization of the inexorable sentence 
under which I was wandering. I found the 
Egyptians to be a mixed race ; I learned that 
they had intermarried, often forcibly, with 
Assyrians, Ethiopians, Persians, Arabs, Ro- 

50 



A Wanderer's Legend ^i 

mans, Greeks and others. Yet their children 
and descendants had, up to that time, preserved 
the original type of their race under the earlier 
dynasties. 

It was even so with the animals, the peculiar 
appearance of those used by agriculturists in the 
fields ; no matter of what origin, they appeared to 
be Egyptian. 

The people throughout the land were strict 
observers of the forms of worship bequeathed to 
them by their ancestors, and in which their 
fathers had instructed them from infancy. 
Some, however, listened to the multitude com- 
ing from Judea with tidings of ' the new hope,' 
' the new religion.' Many had been convinced 
and converted. More and more early followers 
of Christ found their way into Egypt, and 
thousands sought refuge among the converted 
Egyptians at Koptos, Negada and Akhmim on 
the Nile. 

In fact, they soon formed a large proportion 
of the population of the land. Their costume 
attracted me, for until then I had only been 
accustomed to sec my own people. They wore 



52 A Wanderer's Legend 

gowns of dark material, their heads turbaned with 
light brown or gray and black kerchiefs. 

I could not see much of their women, for their 
faces were veiled; indeed, the more earnestly 
they espoused the new religion, the more de- 
sirous they seemed to be to conceal their faces, 
which were always veiled when they walked 
abroad. 

They were deeply interested in their new 
religion ; they had in manuscript made many 
copies of parts of your holy scriptures and had 
built many churches. These Egyptian Chris- 
tians, these Copts were for a while well treated 
by imperial Roman rulers ; but Hke the in- 
evitable persecution of my race, they also were 
overtaken ; they even, as the children of Israel in 
this same land, had to endure subjugation and 
almost bondage. 

I saw the work of Abu Tummim about the 
end of the tenth century, when he built Cairo, 
and it became the capital of Egypt. Two 
hundred years later ill-advised Frankish cru- 
saders nearly destroyed that beautiful city. 

If any wandering of my life could be agree- 



A Wanderer's Legend 53 

able, one of my pleasantest visits to Egypt was 
in the year 270 a. d., when Zenobia had taken 
possession and graciously ruled for a short time 
that land of pyramids and temples ; but Rome, 
that engulphed all other powers, drove Zenobia 
also out of Egypt. 

There I saw the worship of Serapis in all its 
phases — owing to errors in tradition, two hun- 
dred years later men asked me if there really 
had existed a man known as Serapion. Yes, I 
have even spoken to him ; I met him, the An- 
chorite Serapion, shortly after he had been con- 
verted by a Christian hermit ; I deemed him to 
be sincerely a convert to your faith ; from his 
consistent manner of life I judged him to be 
truly a Christian. And there was Thacis who 
accepted Christ as her redeemer ; she was indeed 
a devoted Christian. Her life was given to the 
faith of plebeians ; yes, in that age of mythology 
she listened and accepted the proffered mediation 
of Christ and courageously confessed her belief 
in the then despised King of the Jews, accepting 
Christ rather as the Son and emissary of God, 
who she believed had sent him to redeem the 



54 A Wanderer's Legend 

world or those who would accept him. Alas, I 
was then not of those who wisely laid hold on 
his salvation. 

Already the controlling thought in my mind 
was the consideration of religions. In Judea I 
had observed, with interest, the Gnostics, and 
when in Egypt I found them in greater force. 
In the first and during the second century I met 
with two classes of these religionists, who termed 
themselves Gnostics. The members of one of 
these sects were really Christians, and did not 
stray from the fold of Christ. Others were those 
who, after having professed belief in Christ, sought 
and found consolation in mysticisms and false 
systems ; in the ranks of the latter were Jews, 
Greeks, Persians, and Buddhists of several Or- 
iental schools ; many of their doctrines originated 
in my country Judea. 

Some of my Hebrew race also took refuge in 
Gnosticism, and full as many of your sect, in- 
stead of carrying souvenirs of Christ in their 
hearts, listened to the Gnostic priests of the 
Abraxas persuasion, and from them received en- 
graved mystic tokens. It was frail human na- 



A Wanderer's Legend ^^ 

tiire delighted with the idea of a redeemer, whom 
some of them had seen and yet looking for 
something mysterious and tangible, such as those 
tokens given them by their priests which they 
bound on their arms or carried on their breasts. 
At one time followers of Gnosticism could easily 
be recognized by a mark burnt in on the inner 
side of the lobe of the right ear. 

I saw their prominent men, their mentors, the 
Nicolaitans. I heard Simon Magus ^ speak ; he 
once said, 

* Ego Sum Sermo Dei ! ' ^ 

I knew Menander, Cerinthus, Carpocrates, Mar- 
cion of Pontus and Cerdon, but Cerdon did not 
like the race of my ancestors. 

I judged that the majority of Gnostics with 
whom I conversed were opposed to true and 
pure Christianity. Your Saviour would have 
said of them, * Those that are not with me are 
against me.' Yet the sentiments and the oppo- 
sition of these stragglers caused devout Chris- 
tians to reflect, and after reflection, they gener- 
ally were strengthened in their belief. 

1 Acts VIII. 13. a Acts 8: 8. 



56 A Wanderer's Legend 

There were among these wanderers from the 
fold such names as the Ophites ; they even be- 
Heved that Judas Iscariot was right when he be- 
trayed Christ, yet there were learned and good 
men among the Gnostics ; there was Basilides, 
one in whose countenance probity, sincerity and 
erudition could be discerned. 

Several centuries ago I lost sight of those pe- 
cuhar people. In the fourth century, Gnosticism 
was forbidden by Roman law. 

When I entered Egypt, although Cleopatra 
was no more, she still lived in the hearts of the 
people ; her beauty, her power, her genius, were 
exalted by every tongue. I saw how great had 
been her rule, not only of Egypt and the Egyp- 
tians, but of Antony and of Caesar. 

Other nations almost invariably seemed to 
look up to some revered being in whom to place 
their trust and their hopes of welfare in a future 
life. I saw with wonder the Egyptians believing 
in an invisible spirit, go to their tombs trusting 
in their emblems of another life. 

I was at times permitted to read the inscriptions 
on scarabei, and when I saw those fervent ad- 



A Wanderer's Legend 57 

dresses to the soul, I realized that their senti- 
ment was beautiful ; I, too, admired their attach- 
ment to the symbolic scarabei. They went to 
the grave, as to a welcome waiting place, full of 
hope, believing that they should some day ad- 
vance, and that eventually they should rejoin the 
hosts at the throne of the supreme ruler Osiris. 

The ancient Epyptians were earnest in their 
devotions, and self-abnegating in their sacrifices. 
Their forms and ceremonies had no resemblance 
either to those of your faith or mine ; Osiris was 
the nearest to an ideal redeemer, yet he was 
adored in fear as a relentless god, a severe judge, 
before whom all would have to stand some day. 

As recently as the fifth century I saw men 
worshiping at altars raised to Osiris and Isis. 
After the Byzantine efforts to suppress these 
rights, tumults occurred among the easily ex- 
cited populace, and I saw good government in 
Egypt decline. 

Examining carefully the sculptured stones of 
this people and the wall painted representations 
of their revered deities, I was convinced that 
some of their reputed sovereigns were actually 



58 A Wanderer's Legend 

only their mythological deities which, through 
generations, had been adored, until tradition 
gave them a place in history which really was 
apochryphal. 

I was grieved by the evident fraud committed 
by Thotmes III who, when he came to the ac- 
cession erased the name of his sister Hatshepu, 
and substituted his own and his brother's name, 
reckoning his reign from Hatshepu's accession. 

In Egypt my chief interest at one time was to 
look into the evidences of the power attained by 
the Israelites, and the good accomplished when 
our Joseph governed in the land of the 
Pharaohs. 

Though I am and was a Jew, I always rejoiced 
to see the failure of every effort of Imperial 
Pagan Rome to destroy Christianity. 

When Constantine in 313 A. d. announced 
and decreed that Christianity should have equal 
rights with other rehgions, and when his power 
became absolute, he held forth the banner of 
your Christ. 

I confess to you that then I regretted that I 
had been born a Jew ; it seemed to me that I 



A Wanderer's Legend 59 

was spurned on account of my race. The more 
the Roman emperors endeavored to crush 
Christianity, the more I became convinced of 
its truth. 

During all these struggles in my own mind 
and the dissensions I witnessed among believers 
and pagans, I admired, and to this day, rejoice 
in the acts of those converts ; I still recollect the 
energy and the perseverance of those devout 
early Christians who, in Alexandria, brought 
together and preserved the writings of the 
evangelists ; yes they gathered and guarded the 
manuscripts now forming your New Testament ; 
the testament of the holy man for whom I had 
no pity. 

Alexandria. 

You would have had now many important 
records of ancient history in Greek, Hebrew and 
Latin, if the great collection of manuscripts of 
the earliest years had been spared from the 
pillage of the fourth century and that conflagra- 
tion of the seventh century a. d. 

One of your sect, Theophilus, a Christian 



6o A Wanderer's Legend 

bishop in 389 a. d., at least permitted the re- 
moval of hundreds and even thousands of vol- 
umes from that library. 

During one of my visits, in 634 a. d., Omar I 
succeeded Abou Bekr in power; as soon as 
Omar had the purse in hand he accorded pen- 
sions to the family of Mahomet. 

Omar's chief general Amru-Ben-El-Ass made 
the conquest of Egypt for him and took pos- 
session of Alexandria in about 640 A. d. 
Among the treasures which fell into the hands 
of the Moslems was the great ♦ Library of Alex- 
andria.' Amru, at the command of the Caliph 
Omar, directed his hordes to burn the library 
and thus were destroyed the precious manu- 
scripts and other literary treasures never to be 
replaced. I stood there at the time and with 
grief viewed the conflagration ; it burned during 
three days, the atmosphere was at times stifling 
and the heavens were darkened by the singed 
and parched fragments of their velum rising 
from the burning mass. Amru had proposed to 
Omar to spare and preserve that valuable depot, 
but Omar insisted that it must go, and ordered 



A Wanderer's Legend 6l 

it to be burnt, saying to him that the Koran 
should take the place of all other books. 

It was at that time that the Mahometans be- 
came as one nation ; no matter where they had 
wandered, their coreligionists looked after their 
welfare. Those in Syria, Persia, Mesopotamia, 
Lybia and Africa, all paid tribute to Omar. 
Whilst Omar reigned he built more than a 
thousand mosques. These were among the 
most attractive architectural structures of all 
nations in that epoch. It was the wisdom of his 
administration which insured the duration of his 
conquests. His successors have always profited 
by the resources he laid up and provided for the 
faithful. 

Nor can I turn from my remembrance of 
sojourns in Egypt without speaking of the peace- 
ful era of rest under the Persian Chosroes ; but 
again in the seventh century there came the in- 
vasion and final conquest of the Arab Moslems 
which made Egypt the home of Islamism." 



CHAPTER IX 

EARLY CHRISTIANS 

" From the moment I left my home in Jerusa- 
lem, I continually witnessed the struggle of those 
pagans who longed to quit the w^orship of 
effigies to make Christ the solace of their 
hearts. I saw them renounce their pecuHar 
pagan rites, their useless sacrifices and their 
fealty to misguiding mentors. 

From the moment of their conversion they 
realized that the offer of eternal life they had 
received from Christ was an inheritance from 
above, which could not be controlled by the 
decrees of this world. 

As a pagan government would not tolerate 
the open expression of faith in Jesus of Naza- 
reth, nor permit his people to worship him 
publicly, they were for a time driven to secret 
reunions, assemblies hidden in the catacombs on 

the Via Appia and elsewhere at Rome. I have 

62 



A Wanderer's Legend 63 

often seen them descending underground to 
pray, and I have seen them when passing their 
sentries show their tesserae. See here is one 
engraved on bone ; I have carried it more than 
twelve hundred years. 

You may, perhaps, wonder why these simple- 
hearted people did not openly worship their 
redeemer. In the second century a. d., the 
Emperor Valerian forbade them to hold public 
meetings for their worship, therefore they were 
forced to resort to their subterranean chapels. 

Fifteen years later, however, when I revisited 
Rome, there was toleration of their assemblies, 
but they were still persecuted in many ways. 

In the coliseum, I saw many of those Chris- 
tians expire in the arena rather than deny their 
faith." 



CHAPTER X 

MAHOMET 

" Men of the Church, dignitaries of your de- 
nomination, until now the prominent feature of 
my narrative has been your Master, Christ. 
To-day I would speak to you of a man, an 
Arab, who born, Anno Domini 569, was not 
laid in a manger, whose life dawned amidst all 
the comforts of his parents home in Mecca. 
That Arab, Mahomet, who though giving years 
of his youth to a commercial life, dreamed and 
investigated religions, and who eventually led 
millions to a holy life through the revelation 
which he professed to have received. I knew 
his father, and often saw Mahomet. When still 
a boy he traveled with his uncle, Zobier, accom- 
panying his caravan, passing through vast soli- 
tudes of desert places, only at times resting at 

oases ; attending Arabian fairs ; again through 

64 



A Wanderer's Legend 65 

valleys and over mountainous regions, ere they 
could realize by the sale of their goods at 
Bostra. 

An important element in the formation of the 
young Mahomet's character was his acquaint- 
ance with the holy Nestorians, when encamped 
with his Uncle Taleb. These monks knew and 
visited his uncle, the master of the caravan. 
The young Mahomet listened seriously to the 
conversations and instruction of those monks. 
The pleasure and the interest was mutual, for 
those Christian Nestorians were gratified with 
the eager attention paid by the youth to their 
discourses. They little dreamed that he whom 
they were counselling, should, when a man, lead 
millions from idolatry to a religion that would 
almost govern the Eastern world. I admired 
the boy, for I saw that he accomplished carefully 
everything that he undertook. 

During his caravan life, he encountered idola- 
ters in Arabia, and even in his native village ; 
he saw how images were being brought there in 
great numbers from other countries. He com- 
pared these pagan ideas with what he had 



66 A Wanderer's Legend 

learned of the book of God, from his wife's 
cousin, Waraka, who had translated 'and ex- 
plained portions of it to him, by lamplight of an 
evening. 

By degrees in his early life his mind was 
turned from the idolatry of his people. The in- 
fluence of the instruction of those Christian men 
was afterwards visible in the principles he sought 
to inculcate after he came into the influential 
position of Prophet. I was even present at 
Mecca when Mahomet was betrothed, and mar- 
ried to Cadijah. I saw the poor rejoice on that 
occasion in his gifts of dates and the flesh of 
sheep and camels. 

After several years of labor he turned from 
commercial enterprise in caravan life, to the 
serious consideration of religion. What a revo- 
lution he accomplished ! He converted not only 
the citizens of his Mecca, but in a short time, the 
Arabs of the entire Orient. He taught them 
to turn from their hundreds of deities in wood 
and stone, and place their belief in one God, and 
the blessed and accepted Mahomet as their 
Prophet. He reflected, he considered well, the 



A Wanderer's Legend 67 

revelations which he conscientiously professed 
to have received. 

He believed in his mission, yet he hesitated 
until in his fortieth year ; then he made known 
his important communications to mankind. Ma- 
homet's sincerity and honesty were undoubted. 

It is a remarkable fact that he did not with 
egotism rush before the public, or even make 
known his doctrines indiscriminately to those 
with whom he had associated in childhood. 
Some of those to w^hom his advanced opinions 
had been made known, looked upon him as one 
demented. After a long struggle with himself, 
it seemed actually as if he was instructed by an 
invisible power, to announce to the w^orld his 
message of love, and then withal it w^as done 
with so much humility. 

When he looked into the faces of men to ad- 
vise and instruct them in the way they should 
go, his countenance was lighted with a smile. 
He also had a tender, sympathetic voice that ap- 
pealed to men ; those even who heard him and 
wavered, could not long resist that voice, as it 
brought those merciful arguments to their hearts. 



68 A Wanderer's Legend 

I saw men in the desert where Mahomet and 
his followers were encamped. How eagerly 
they listened to his comforting words ! I recog- 
nized him as another great Messiah ; I know 
that his followers accepted him as such. It was 
evident that he induced them to live better lives ; 
no reasonable man could doubt that Mahomet 
was a blessing to the people to whom he de- 
clared himself and his religion. 

Mahomet hoped by marriage to insure a suc- 
cession of male children, who, in time, would 
continue to inculcate his religious principles, and 
who would be looked up to and respected as his 
descendants, in this he was disappointed. 

His example was one of moderation in all 
things ; he was abstemious and wore very simple 
costume. It was he who instituted the annual 
pilgrimage to Mecca, long before his own tomb 
and remains were the objects of sacred venera- 
tion on the west of the Red Sea. 

To-day, eight hundred years later, in this six- 
teenth century, Anno Domini, his religion and 
his banner are known over the civilized world. 

Your eminences, with all respect to your 



A Wanderer's Legend 69 

denomination, I wish to say to you, that the 
rehgion of Mahomet appealed directly to the 
souls of men, without the aid of such effigies, 
forms of worship, and reminders, as you employ 
in your Church. His followers are instructed 
to face Mecca, from whatever point they may 
find themselves, and there they plead with the 
Almighty to grant their prayer through the 
mediation of Mahomet." 



CHAPTER XI 

AFRICA 

While Ahasuerus rested for a moment the 
Moderating Theologian said, " These remarks 
are certainly interesting and important. We 
cannot all think alike, but recognizing the 
liberahty of thought expressed by our aged 
friend, we await with impatience his continued 
recital." 

Ahasuerus, without fatigue, quickly recom- 
menced his discourse, saying, " Naturally, while 
on a continent, I continued gradually my way 
through the adjacent countries, and in this 
course I strode through the land of the descend- 
ants of Ham. 

Traversing the African sands, where the torrid 

rays of the sun beat upon my aged brow, I 

often hoped that its tropical power might send 

me to that sepulchral home where one doth rest ; 

such was not to be my lot ; it could not be so for 

70 



A Wanderer's Legend 71 

me ! Just as in youth, I enjoyed the sun's 
briUiant light, so then its burning rays seemed to 
renew my Hfe. True, its brightness at moments 
dimmed my vision ; ever in my ears I heard that 
voice that bade me * hasten on.' I could not 
resist, always continuing my march through that 
land — then the home of serfdom. 

In most countries bondage was the fate of men 
taken as prisoners in times of war. In some 
civilized nations men had been condemned to 
forced labor, becoming bondsmen on being con- 
victed of crime, thus they were judicially sen- 
tenced to servitude. In Africa alas, the inhabi- 
tants of villages everywhere were liable to seizure 
at any moment; often have I seen families in 
great sorrow, some member having been re- 
cently kidnapped. 

When at a village then known as Malhado in 
Ginnie,^ I saw a father who, to propitiate the 
gods, publicly tore his daughter's body apart, 
and threw the pieces of flesh into the fields, that 
the birds of prey might be fed, and the vengeance 

' The author assumes no responsibility for the names of places 
given in Coptic four centuries ago. 



72 A Wanderer's Legend 

of the gods of the forest might be appeased. I 
wondered at such horrid ceremonies, and at such 
a brutal sacrifice, but on inquiry learned the old 
story ; these people perform all their religious 
rites at the direction of their Marabouts, their 
mentors. 

I went into Lybia,^ and there I met with a 
strange order of nature, a community of people 
ruled entirely by women. There, contrary to the 
rules of other countries, the women were mis- 
tresses, setting the men aside ; they taught 
themselves all sorts of athletic exercises, and 
prepared their bows and arrows, not only for the 
hunt of birds and animals, but for military com- 
bat. They went out into the country seeking 
for their enemies, whilst their husbands re- 
mained in their huts, to attend to the house- 
keeping, and take care of the children, the larger 
proportion of whom were girls, for in each 
family the life of only one boy was spared. 

This state of affairs was the result of a law 
made by the women, which thus insured a con- 
tinuance of their supremacy. 

Everywhere in this country I encountered 



A Wanderer's Legend 73 

cannibals ; still there seemed to be no hope of 
my giving up life ; the cannibals had no appetite 
for my aged body ; in their estimation my flesh 
was undesirable. 

I marched a hundred leagues through the 
Desert of Sahara, before I found a drop of sweet 
water with which to wash the dust from my 
head and eyes. 

As I proceeded to the south and interior of 
Africa, among tribes by great lakes, I found 
more astonishing systems of adoration and of 
trust, in the most grotesque and hideous figures 
rudely carved in wood. Some of the tribes had 
erected colossal gods or talismans at the en- 
trances to their villages ; they also were rudely 
carved in hard wood and were colored in a most 
primitive manner. In their hamlets a place or 
square for reunion was set apart for worship, 
where an altar of stones was erected, on which 
animals and even human beings were frequently 
sacrificed. This space was also the site of enor- 
mous, grotesque deities in wood, of the most ex- 
travagant and hideous designs. 

O reverend prelates ! what opportunities I 



74 A Wanderer's Legend 

have had to compare the religions of this world ! 
I am convinced that he is narrow indeed, who 
only knows the religion taught to him by his 
parents. At the same time I believe that the 
religion of Christ shows to greater advantage by 
comparison with the various religions of all the 
ages, from the foundation of the world. 

Moving through the desert to the northeast, I 
stopped at beautiful Ouedna, which the Romans 
had subjugated. They were still in the thralls 
of paganism when I stopped with them. They 
used much water in their religious rites, and 
there I saw a wonderful arched cistern of great 
dimensions, which they had built in the third 
century A. D. 

I crossed to the west to Thimgad, a city con- 
structed of stone, which the builder secured with 
difficulty, from the rocky barriers of El Kantara ; 
the white marble of the latrines and baths trans- 
ported from Italy was in contrast to the impurity 
of their reHgious life. 

Thence in the northeast I saw Carthage in its 
grandeur ; I admired the perfect system of stor- 
age and supply of rain and spring water, I re- 



A Wanderer's Legend 75 

garded with wonder its temples to unknown 
gods. That city was too beautiful to escape the 
envious eyes of the Romans. Besides its fre- 
quent contests with the Greeks from Sicily, 
Carthage, after the second century, became too 
great for its own welfare, it was its very magnifi- 
cence that attracted the greedy, grasping hand 
of Rome. 

Rome could not bear to see Carthage control- 
ling those African cities, and colonies such as 
the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. So I lived 
to see the pride of Carthage fall, and all-absorb- 
ing Rome to enthrone its vast power where the 
Phoenicians had prepared and established so 
great a stronghold." 



CHAPTER XII 

PHCENICIA 

" From Carthage, the greatest of the colonial 
enterprises of the Phoenicians on the Mediter- 
ranean, I determined to see again their original 
parent country on the western coast of Syria. 

On the occasion of different visits during three 
centuries to the land previously occupied by the 
master merchants of the then known world, I 
saw evidences among the Phoenicians when in 
their own country of foreign influences in the 
construction of their villages and towns. 

Also the art objects were of types, naturally 
the result of their commercial relations with 
other countries to the south and west, particu- 
larly with Egypt — that country lying nearer to 
them than the islands on the Mediterranean Sea 
where they colonized. The Phoenicians were 
continually changing their habitations. They 

were always a migratory, seafaring people, speak- 

76 



A Wanderer's Legend 77 

ing a modified dialect of the Hebrew, sufficiently 
akin to the language of my childhood to render 
it possible for us to converse and understand one 
another. 

I have no definite conception of their religion, 
but can remember that they revered nature. 
Mountain-tops were adored because they rose 
heavenward, which all men seem to have con- 
ceived to be in the skies — above. 

All meteoric stones falling from the heavens 
were sacred to them ; they esteemed these bolts 
from heaven as messengers from thence, which 
man, in his frailty and ignorance, could not 
comprehend ; therefore from these they carved 
and engraved their spherical token seals. 

I visited and admired their temples with 
peculiarly ornamented stones, particularly the 
temple of Melkart on the southeast shore of 
Melita, now known as Malta; there they left 
inscriptions in two languages, in Greek and 
Punic. The adjacent island of Gandus was rich 
in pitted stone remains of Phoenician temples 
which they were compelled to forsake when 
driven out by the Greeks. 



yS A Wanderer's Legend 

From what I was enabled to learn their forms 
of worship were simple and impressive. The orbs 
of day and night, rivers, trees and green fields 
were devoutly worshiped by them ; their adoration 
of the sun was in the sense that it should be 
regarded as the Son of the God who rules in the 
heavens, through which his brilliant Son passes. 

This was the religion which they first estab- 
lished on the African continent when they 
founded Carthage ; their priests naturally at- 
tended to the propagation of their religion, but 
Mahometanism became the faith of all the people 
of Syrian descent in the eighth century. 

At this day, in the sixteenth century, we only 
find buried in the debris of ages symbols en- 
graved on scarabei and other token stones, 
evidences and souvenirs of their peculiar belief. 

Your Catholic reverences have a religion so 
firmly founded that I believe no convulsion of 
nature can ever cause it to totter. You are 
saints of the Lord God — your religion shall 
endure ; to us is only given indications of the 
existence and religion of that remarkable people, 
the Phoenicians." 



CHAPTER XIII 

GREECE 

" In my young manhood, when I commenced 
my unwilHng walks, I found that ancient Greece 
had become a Roman province under the name 
of Ach^a. The Romans intended that the 
Greeks should not regain their freedom, and 
sought to render them powerless by dispossess- 
ing them of the means of defending themselves. 
There were always classes in Athens who gained 
and accumulated wealth, and lived luxuriously in 
proportion to their fortunes ; this, as in all such 
cases, raised the value of the necessities of ex- 
istence, so that the poorer classes, and especially 
the skilled artists, were compelled to turn their 
thoughts to Asia and the West. 

At the time I w^as first in Greece the artisans 
were looking towards Rome as a good field for 
art labor, and had already commenced to colo- 
nize there. They did not need to carry their 

79 



8o A Wanderer's Legend 

gods with them, for Rome had largely borrowed 
from their mythology, so that in matters of 
religion they found themselves at home in Italy. 

Hadrian and Caracalla sympathized with the 
Greek colonists, and did much to improve their 
condition ; however, they and their immediate 
successors continued to regard Greece more with 
a view to Roman aggrandizement. Rome did 
not even afford Greece the means of defense, 
but deprived them of the arms with which to 
protect that country from the Sicilian pirates. 

During the third and fourth centuries, Greece 
was a prey to barbarian invasions. In that time 
I did not go there. Eventually I saw that true 
courage and good defensive stone walls helped 
materially to increase their prosperity. 

In the fifth century I visited the splendid 
ancient buildings of the Acropolis. 

The religion of that Hellenic people was a 
blending of Christianity and paganism ; it 
seemed to enable the people to- live peacefully 
and at ease. In the eighth century I found the 
whole Grecian national structure falling to pieces 
by the invasion and power of the Saracens. 



A Wanderer^s Legend 81 

Just then rose that great man Leo, the Isaurian, 
who revived the whole nation. I saw the pesti- 
lence which in so short a time ravaged the cities 
and that laid thousands in hastily made tombs. 
Yet that scourge overlooked me, the Jew 
wanderer. Ah, how willingly would I have 
exchanged my sort with those victims — but the 
inexorable sentence had to be executed. They, 
the men of Athens, went to rest in their silent 
graves and I, the reprobate Jew, was spared to 
wander ! Your reverences, I have not spoken 
to you of their literature, nor of their lettered 
men, but I will mention that I knew the poet- 
monk, Ptochoprodromus, and the emperor, 
Manuel Comninus, in the twelfth century." 



CHAPTER XIV 

CRETE MINOS 

" After leaving Phoenicia, I visited among 
the wonders of the earth the partially buried 
ruins of a city in the island of Crete which had 
been deserted by its tenants two thousand years 
before Christ. 

I was still able to form some idea of the 
grandeur of the palace of Minos. Its chambers, 
corridors, vaults, basso rilievos and pictured 
walls told of an earlier and surprising civiHza- 
tion. 

A throne was still there, with chairs of state 
all in stone ; on either side arched niches con- 
tained archaic decorations in color. 

I now recall inscribed stone pilasters and 

panels, a space on which were carved two lions 

in relief, reminding one of Mycenae. Above 

remained a portion of a frescoed wall, on which 

a great Mycenaean griffon with the plumed head 

82 



A Wanderer's Legend 83 

of a cock continued to that day to look down on 
those who dared to break the silence that sealed 
those mysterious premises. Had I not known 
that it had held that position during ages an- 
terior to my existence, I would have thought 
that the effigy had recognized in me, the wan- 
dering Jew, and that it was spurning me with its 
hawk-like eye ! 

I stood — mused — and remembered that this 
had actually been the palace of Minos, King of 
Cnossus of Crete, mythologically son of Zeus. 
There men had struggled and vied with one 
another to establish the religion of their prefer- 
ence. For into that palace passed daily men of 
many races, Cydonians, Pelasgians, Achaeans 
and Dorians. These various people were not 
united in their interests, therefore they fell, 
and with the nation crumbled the great edifices 
which had once domiciled great Minos ! " 



CHAPTER XV 

ITALY 

" Probably no country was ever settled by a 
greater variety of conquerors from many nations ; 
there were in turn Greek, Gothic and Lombard 
rulers, then came the Romans under Justinian ; 
then the Gregories, the Leos — the release from 
the allegiance to Byzantium — Charles the Great 
(Charlemagne) in the eighth century. 

For a while your popes sat tranquilly in the 
chair which you consider holy. In the tenth 
century came the German rule under * Otto the 
Great ' when at times the Italian people were 
not allowed to elect their pope. Otto willed 
that your papal rulers should be chosen from 
more holy men and from a more northern race. 

Had the well-known principle, * United we 

stand ' been fully appreciated by all the partisans 

of the many sections in that beautiful peninsula, 

union might have prospered and strengthened 

84 



A Wanderer's Legend 85 

the people of Ravenna, lords of Ferrara, the 
Scallas of Verona ; the Forrioni in the central 
northwest ; those seeking power at Piacenza 
Manfredi and Faenza ; in fact the history of 
Italy as I saw it during those centuries was the 
contention of various dynastic houses to rule 
and to augment their power. 

Italy has not had sufficient political unity nor 
organized national existence. Now, with Dante, 
we are hoping that we have entered into a new 
era of our existence ; I say our hope, for although 
I am a wandering cosmopolitan, after Jerusalem 
I feel most at home in Rome, though my people 
have been relegated to almost banishment. Are 
we not men, ha\'e we not contributed to the 
wealth of sovereigns and of the entire world by 
our close attention to finance ? 

Let it be said that we Israelites are an 
accursed race, yet have we not been a valuable 
element in the commercial interests of all 
modern nations from the fifth to this the dawn- 
ing of the sixteenth century ? 

I have seen periods in Italy when the rights 
of citizenship were accorded to all men ; when 



86 A Wanderer's Legend 

the skilled workmen of other countries gave 
their aid to art in Italy, no one asked are you 
Roman, Latin, Italian, Greek or provincial ; all 
men entitled to the honor announced and 
claimed their Roman citizenship." 

The Moderator here interposed — " My aged 
friend, you must have seen many administra- 
tions ? " 

" Yes, your reverence, I have seen great 
changes ; well do I remember when in the 
various nations along the entire length and 
breadth of the Mediterranean, man looked for 
defense — protection from the great parent em- 
pire of Rome. The adoration of regal power — 
of imperial sceptres often seemed more profound 
than their respect for the mythical divinities 
which were held up before them. 

In the first and second century a. d. the 
empire of Rome included about all civilized 
countries ; although their emperors were often 
autocrats and severe, the powerful influences of 
the law and the assurance of justice united that 
great national combination. 

But after Marcus Antonius, I beheld con- 



A Wanderer's Legend 87 

tinued, even rapid decline and then a fall which 
affected the entire eastern world. 

I have said to your reverences, the eastern 
world ; for it is only within the last thirty-five 
years that we know of a western hemisphere. 

Honored prelates, I desire now while speaking 
of Italy to mention the Israelites who formed 
so large a proportion of the subjects of that 
kingdom. 

' It seems that all my race have wandered ; for 
whatever land I traverse, Jews are to be seen 
and rarely an instance of indolence. 

No doubt, some of them have traveled as I 
have been forced to do. Some of them have 
been wanderers. I can sympathize with them. 
I, the wanderer through ages, paying the penalty 
of that unfortunate error. 

You well know how cruel has been the treat- 
ment of my race ; we have been forced to live 
within inclosures ; you are aware that w^e have 
been depressed, broken down; we say in our 
Hebrew language, ' Our people have been aban- 
doned.' 

The first Jewish prisoners were niade slaves 



88 A Wanderer's Legend 

by the great Pompeius after he had taken Jeru- 
salem in the year 63 A. d. At one time the 
more wealthy Israelites lived in the great capital 
honored and respected ; in fact did not Titus de- 
sire to make Veronica empress of Rome ! 

Under several emperors down even to the 
reign of Tiberius they were esteemed and well 
treated. 

Again, think how my Jewish ancestors in 
Italy were forced to assist in building the coli- 
seum where the earliest members of your Church 
suffered in contests with wild beasts and lay 
down their lives. It is true that those Jews who 
had amassed a fortune were allowed freedom in 
proportion to the taxes they paid. 

With credit to the holy fathers of your Church, 
when the papal power was well founded, Israel- 
ites fared better and were allowed for a while 
more freedom. 

Then again came reverses for Jews — and now 
in this sixteenth century all classes in Italy are 
ill at ease. 

Italy has become the battle-field on which the 
quarrels ecclesiastical and political of Europe are 



A Wanderer's Legend 89 

being fought ; French invasions of both northern 
and southern Italy, have occurred under Charles 
VIII, and Louis XII. 

Mr. Moderator, I cannot cease speaking of 
Italy without some mention of that part of the 
country which was the domain of the Etrurians. 

You have desired to hear and to acquaint 
yourselves through my experience with the 
countries which I have traversed. Alas, the 
Etrurians, whose nation formed a part of that 
peninsula, had already long gone to rest, and 
their cities to decay and ruin, before I began my 
adventurous life. There had existed twelve 
principal cities, the remains of which I visited 
while they still enabled one to judge of what 
they had been in their palmy days. Among 
other cities which the Etruscans had colonized 
were Herculaneum, Pompeii, Surrentum and 
Capua; — these cities I saw in their magnifi- 
cence. Pompeii and Herculaneum were over- 
whelmed soon after I passed there ; one by 
cinders and ashes, the other with molten lava. 

I saw several of their temples, square in form, 
but as their religious services had ceased and the 



go A Wanderer's Legend 

priests who had so often officiated were silent in 
the tombs, I cannot contribute that knowledge 
to your reverences. 

One hundred and twenty years before my 
doom was sealed, that fatal day, when I repulsed 
Christ at Jerusalem, the Etruscans were admitted 
to Roman franchise, and Rome was a prosperous 
Etruscan city ruled by Etruscan kings. 

Your reverences, centuries ago I visited their 
tombs which were then in a greater condition 
of preservation, the curious invaders of these 
times not having yet despoiled them. I saw 
every evidence in the symbols that were de- 
posited with their beloved dead, that they be- 
lieved in a future and better existence. And 
like you of your Church, were looking forward 
to rejoin them at the Throne of the divine 
Creator of the Universe." 



CHAPTER XVI 

BYZANTINE 

" Prelates of the Church, it must be the same 
divine Power on which you have founded your 
trust, that has enabled me with Httle fatigue to 
relate during so continuous a period, the narra- 
tive of my eventful career. 

As I have witnessed the rule of nearly all the 
sovereigns of the Roman Empire, my opinion 
of their comparative worth may be valued by 
your august clerical body. 

Constantine, in my judgment, Avas one of the 
most eminent of all the Roman Emperors. I 
was in Byzantion while Constantine was in 
power. Through the existence of that Roman 
city on the Bosphorus, and the temporary fall 
of the once Imperial government at the city on 
the Tiber, the power of the Popes increased, and 
had they been less immoral, and more united 
and devoted to the interests of the Church, they 

91 



g2 A Wanderer's Legend 

might have continually retained the influential 
position they had gained ; but the corrupt lives 
of some of them caused holier and greater men 
to seize the government, and accord royal pro- 
tection to the people. 

Often in Italy the power was military ; 
emperors or kings were placed, or removed 
from their thrones by armies, so that at times 
several armies, in different districts, placed their 
nominees or favorites on as many temporary 
thrones. This caused many and prolonged 
struggles, as each potentate sought to make his 
throne the centre and commanding power of the 
nation. 

Though through the circumstances of my 
birth and education, I am a Jew, I admired 
Constantine's protection of the Christians. 
When early in the fourth century he became 
fully possessed of the empire and power, he 
bravely professed and lived up to the doctrines 
of Christianity. He built and improved his cap- 
ital east of the Dardanelles, modestly w^ishing at 
first to have it known as Nova Roma. The 
greatest men are often humbled, and it was this 



A Wanderer's Legend 93 

element in Constantine's grand character, which 
prompted him not to give his own name to the 
city of his making. 

But on the insistence of his people, they 
named that city, which we all now recognize as 
Constantinople. 

It was there I saw the triumph of your 
rehgion, and at the same time, the unsuccessful 
attempts in Rome, Egypt, and Northern Africa, 
to suppress Christianity and restore paganism. 
I was gratified, though a Jew, at the failure 
of all those conspiracies. Experience had con- 
vinced me what was best for humanity. 

Then in Byzantion it was said, * Satan hath 
lost his power over man.' Then occurred the 
first millennium in the Orient. It was an era of 
Christian peace, yet it did not endure the thou- 
sand years the term implied. 

While it continued, the banner of your religion 
floated peacefully on the borders of the Black 
Sea, and triumphantly wherever people existed 
under the protection of Constantine. He not 
only reigned long and clemently, but he thought 
wisely to provide for the future interests of his 



94 A Wanderer's Legend 

people when he divided his dominion among his 
own children, giving the power to his sons. 

But alas in the close of the eighth century, the 
Emperor Constantine VI, grandson of Con- 
stantine Kopronymos, was cruelly deprived of 
his eyes by his mother Eirene. In the com- 
mencement of the ninth century, through in- 
trigue, the patrician, Charles Augustus, was 
crowned, and his throne established at Rome by 
Pope Leo, so that as with the popes of one 
hundred years ago (in the fifteenth century), 
there existed two Roman emperors, and nom- 
inally two capitals of Rome. I visited them 
both, and with continued disappointment, I 
realized that at neither court could I obtain my 
heart's longing desire to forget life in the oblivion 
of the tomb." 

At this moment an aged priest rose, and 
addressing the Moderating Theologian, stated 
that he had fulfilled a mission during several 
years in Turkey, the former seat of Byzantion. 
He desired that Ahasuerus might say something 
of the ancient Armenians. 

After a few minutes reflection the old man 



A Wanderer's Legend 95 

complied, saying, " Ancient Armenia was known 
as Hayasdani, the land of the Armenians. It 
occupied a considerable territory in Persia, 
Russia, and Turkey, part of it lay east of the 
Euphrates, and the minor country to the west of 
that river in Asia. 

I passed through their country in the second 
century when Mithridates did much by good 
government for the prosperity of his and their 
dominions. 

Thaddeus and Bartholomew had already 
founded an Armenian Christian Church while I 
was yet young. Their doctrines resembled 
greatly those of the original Greek Church. It 
differed from your Roman Catholic creed in that 
the Armenians do not believe in your inter- 
mediary state ; for them there is no purgatory. 

The office of priest with them descended from 
father to son ; it was entirely hereditary, and 
even when a son would have preferred the life 
and occupation of a commercial man, he was 
compelled on the demise of his father, to devote 
his life and services to the priesthood. 

When I was in Etchmiadzin in the third 



96 A Wanderer's Legend 

century, one of their patriarchs called me to 
him ; observing my age and peculiar appearance, 
his curiosity prompted him to question me. I 
answered him freely ; he treated me with great 
courtesy. His own language was Persian and 
Turkish, but being a man of much education, he 
spoke Arab with me, so that we fully understood 
one another. 

The Patriarch knowing that I had visited all 
countries where your Roman faith was estab- 
lished, improved the opportunity of my presence, 
to inform himself of the comparative strength of 
the various branches of the Christian church of 
those days. Some centuries later, in the year 
410, A. D., Miesrob with the aid of Ecelencis 
and Palnensis prepared another version of the 
Armenian Bible. I must call your eminences 
attention to the fact that like the different trans- 
lations of the books of the Buddhists so each 
branch of the Christian Church prepared edi- 
tions of the Holy Bible to suit their own peculiar 
ideas or faith," 

The Theologian now arose and addressing 
both the assembly and the old man, said, " These 



A Wanderer's Legend 97 

narrations are indeed of intense interest, and we 
await what is in store for us to-morrow. I pray 
you, Ahasuerus, to accept the resting-place 
which my secretary has prepared for you, until 



we meet again.' 



CHAPTER XVII 

CRUSADERS 

Refreshed and with wonderful vigor, the 
aged wanderer resumed his position and recital. 
" I to-day shall speak to you of the results of the 
Mussulmans mission in the East. As soon as 
the followers of Mahomet realized their growing 
power throughout the Orient, they conceived 
the idea that they should conquer the whole 
known world, force every nation to think of 
Mahomet as they did, and accept and adopt 
their rehgion. These were the hordes with 
whom the men of the banner of the Cross had to 
contend. Among these were the Saracens ; 
those who resisted and combated them were the 
Crusaders. 

There is no doubt that Mahomet was a great 

reformer, whose doctrines were adapted to the 

Nomadic race, to whom he first communicated 

the divine revelations he professed to have re- 

98 



A Wanderer's Legend 99 

ceived. He did dri\'e out idolatry and pagan- 
ism, and benefit mankind to a certain degree, 
but the propaganda of his followers was becom- 
ing too powerful. Those who undertook the 
Crusades endeavored to ensure such a Umit to the 
power of Mahomet's followers, as would protect 
Christians. 

In all this time there was a universal Crusade 
against my race, notwithstanding the richer 
Jews always commanded respect. Being an 
Israelite, not of the persuasion of either of the 
religious parties concerned in those Crusades, I 
could fraternize equally with both sides. I must 
say that I found the Mahometans consistent de- 
fenders of their faith. 

During my career, there have occurred, again 
and again, struggles of a religious nature, which 
may interest your reverences. They were repe- 
titions of those nominally holy wars or Crusades 
against those Mahometans. 

Religious men of your Church in the close of 
the eleventh century, principally under the 
guidance and orders of Pope Urban II, carried 
on such expeditions. 

L.ofC. 



lOO A Wanderer's Legend 

Peter, the Hermit, strongly advocated the 
wars against those whom he considered infidels ; 
he suggested that the forces of the Christian 
Church should go forth under the holy flag, and 
in token of their errand should bear the ensign 
of the Cross on their shoulders. 

These expeditions continued from time to time 
during many years, until there had been eight 
principal Crusades. At first the ranks were not 
filled from all Europe, nor was the cause popular, 
but by degrees all Christians appreciated the im- 
portance of securing possession of the Holy 
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which had so long fallen 
into the hands of the Mussulmans. 

One hundred and fifty years later a holy man 
of your Church, Saint Bernard, started another 
Crusade ; both French and Romans accompanied 
this army. Although they were earnest and 
courageous, I do not think that much success 
attended their efforts. 

In 1 1 87, Saladin, a most important power in 
the Mohammedan faith, drove out again the 
Christians, and for the time frustrated all the 
efforts of the Crusaders to defend the Christian 



A Wanderer's Legend loi 

possession of the holy place at Jerusalem. Then 
all Christian Europe became interested, and 
there followed a number of ineffectual efforts to 
regain the prize. Alas, this has not been fully- 
accomplished in this sixteenth century, a. d. 

In the thirteenth century Frederick II was 
crowned Christian King, and resided at the Holy 
City. He and the Christians remained in power 
until 1 244, when once more, and finally, the Ma- 
hometans took possession. Again the Crusa- 
ders commenced, but with the result that by de- 
grees the Christians lost all foothold in the Holy 
Land. 

Originally your church was united in the cause 
of the Crusaders, but even in your holy ranks 
differences of opinion and jealousies interfered 
with the successful prosecution of the cause. 
Crusades were even formed against some who 
professed Christ, yet whom Pope Innocent looked 
upon as heretics. Later on there were crusades 
against those in Scandinavia who were still ad- 
herents of Paganism. 

I may say to your eminences that almost to 
this day, there have been alternating periods of 



102 A Wanderer's Legend 

Crusades and religious struggles for supremacy 
of one sect over another, even Christians against 
Christians. 

Are not your reverences, all you prelates here 
assembled, in contention with, even opposition 
to, another group of ecclesiastics who equally 
believe themselves to be in the right. This 
always reminds me of those years in the early 
part of the fourteenth century, when, in 1309, 
one of your holy fathers, your Pope, was in a 
palace at Avignon, and another at Rome. 

I will speak to you of that incident when I 
mention my visits in France." 

The Theologian, seeing that Ahasuerus had 
closed this branch of his subject, inquired of 
him, " Were not these Crusades noble efforts of 
holy men, were not the participants earnest and 
brave ? " 

Ahasuerus replied, " Your eminence, naturally 
from your point of view, with your sectarian 
prejudices it seems so to you, but would you 
have my unbiased opinion, I must say they were 
brave, yet inspired by an unnatural zeal. Again 
and again that same error has moved religious 



A Wanderer's Legend 103 

men to act unwisely. There has existed from 
time to time that narrowness among members of 
your sect, not reaHzing that the reHgion of our 
neighbors should be considered and respected. 

The thread of my narrative carries me here, 
your reverences, to a land w^hose early history 
is perhaps less interesting to the members of 
this Conclave, yet one to which I pray you to 
give attention." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE NORTHMEN 

" I PASSED through Britain when the North- 
men under Olaf and Swegen descended on those 
islands and conquered that land. They after- 
wards continued their voyage of invasion to the 
northern shore of France. Swegen was a member 
of your sect ; in the beginning of the eleventh 
century he became King of England. When 
in my wanderings I appeared in his court, he 
pointed his finger at me with scorn ; in bitterness 
he addressed me saying, ' Thou didst turn from 
our Lord and Master when he needed thy assist- 
ance, thou should'st not tarry here among the 
followers of that Divine Man.' I felt deeply 
wounded by his reproach, and went away as he 
bade me. 

In time many of those Northmen crossed 
the sea again, colonized and remained in North- 
ern France. They gradually became more satis- 

104 



A Wanderer's Legend 105 

fied with such resting-places and homes ; civiH- 
zation by degrees pleased them. As a rule the 
majority of the Northmen preferred and endured 
adventure, cold, hunger and toil, if only they 
could gratify their desire of conquest. 

As I encountered them in Britain, in France, 
the islands of the great sea, the Mediterranean, 
in Sicily and elsewhere, I found them adapting 
themselves to the manners, language and relig- 
ion of the people, and often by their northern 
energy they improved and added to the enter- 
prize of the nations where they settled. Each 
Southern colony must indeed have been another 
world, in comparison with the barren lands they 
had forsaken in the North. 

Your reverences must know that the climate 
of those islands was not always rigorous. In 
my long life there have been great changes of 
temperature in those countries where the North- 
men originally lived. I remember when islands 
and peninsulas in the northern regions were 
blessed with a temperate climate. Valleys that 
are now perennially filled with snow, were at that 
time exposed to genial sunlight, which ripened 



io6 A Wanderer's Legend 

fruits and harvests that now are unknown in 
those lands, that now have been during centuries 
sealed up with ice. Yes, your eminences, those 
Northern Islands have changed, as those that re- 
main there now suffer from chill, and blast, and 
storm, so at times my wandering heart loses its 
ardor. 

My life is a cheerless waste ; I feel an in- 
expressible want of consolation, yet I cannot 
tarry to be consoled, I must go, must wander ; 
let me tell your reverences, however, that I do 
find moments of relaxation everywhere. 

I found entertainment among those ruddy 
Norsemen ; their habits, their customs, and their 
limited Hterature interested and diverted me in 
dreary places. 

I have read their Eddas and have listened 
many a night by camp-fires, to their legends 
and traditions, yet in all my journeyings, even 
to the White Sea, I have never been able to 
satisfy myself where they all came from, when 
they settled in the most northern points of 
Sweden and Norway. One fact is most worthy 
of remark. When I first saw them in the fourth 



A Wanderer's Legend 107 

century, they already knew of the sufferings and 
sacrifice of the God Man, who came to save the 
human race, and they adored him. 

These wonderful sights, these opportunities 
for gaining information in all those strange 
countries, have, in some measure, atoned for my 
erratic Hfe. I wander! yes, I wander! I ac- 
knowledge my error, I am Ashasuerus, not 
Cartaphilus, the guardsman, at Pilate's door; he 
pushed your Saviour rudely. No, I am Ahas- 
uerus the son of the carpenter, and I accept 
with patience the continued suffering meted out 
to me. I pray only by daylight of course for 
my father daily laying down his hammer and 
saw taught me that with the going down of the 
sun, the gates of heaven are closed ! 

Though I gain not my cause, it is always a 
satisfaction to speak with our Father in heaven ; 
earthly kings are often inaccessible, but the 
Sovereign of the Universe lends an ear to the 
humblest suppliant. If he, the infinite one, for- 
givcth not, what sliall we expect of mortal man 
reared in the dreary confines of the extreme 
North. When in those ice-bound islands of 



io8 A Wanderer's Legend 

the Polar Sea, again came the hope to me that 
death might bring the consolation I have sought 
these fourteen hundred years. War, fire, famine, 
disease and even lightning have that boon 
refused. 

I sought to let my vitals freeze, but an un- 
natural counteraction gave me a glow that 
warned me I must march on. Through those 
Northmen's lands I strode on my monotonous 
way, always seeing men that dreaded death, that 
longed with every breath to live — to live — to 
live ! I envied them, knowing that their hopes 
were vain. That bleak region had a remarkable 
influence on my aged frame ; twelve times have I 
renewed my youth and my forces, while sojourn- 
ing among those Northmen in their cheerless 
refuges. They always interested me. 

I have also met them on the isles of Britain, 
where I have listened to the mysterious stories 
of strange men, who in the midst of winter have 
sat with them before the blazing logs, relating 
their adventures with hungry animals in the 
drifts of snow, which had impeded their progress. 
On all such occasions at night, some part of 



A Wanderer's Legend 109 

their conversation was certain to include the 
question of a future Hfe. Then the children 
listened and were concerned; but when they 
heard of frightful gnomes which had been met 
by the way, the little ones trembled with fear, 
which they forgot, however, when they too be- 
came Northmen. 

Reverend Theologian, the consideration of 
these hardy men of the North, leads me in the 
next place to speak to you of the land which 
they at first invaded, and with the settlement of 
which they were so intimately connected." 



CHAPTER XIX 

BRITAIN 

*' Since the commencement of my wandering, 
I have not gone where I wished or intended. I 
have moved on where the inevitable power of my 
doom has forced me to go. Although almost 
impossible for me to choose my route, I did often 
shrink from visiting that important island lying 
north of France, and west of the main continent 
of Europe ; at one time known as the land of 
the angles. 

What we now know as England, did no> 

bear that name until well on into the eleventh 

century. It was when the people of Britain 

became independent of Rome. They were then 

an admixture of Celts, Teutons, and Northmen, 

who laid the foundation on which was created 

a nation, destined to become as great as we 

see England in this year of your conclave. The 

climate of that island was painfully rigorous 

no 



A Wanderer's Legend 1 1 1 

in the second and third centuries, while to the 
north a warm sea moderated the temperature ; 
that island was on account of its peculiar posi- 
tion frequently enveloped in cold mists, so that 
for a long period only the most hardy races from 
the extreme North cared to colonize there. 

As they were hardy, so were they industrious. 
Now^ in this sixteenth century idleness is not 
tolerated there. With all respect for your doc- 
trines and opinions, the land of Angles, for that 
very reason, never willingly tolerated monaster- 
ies, where men under the cloak of piety, could 
Hve a life of indolence. 

That industrious population resisted the loca- 
tion of all those communities, wherever they 
sought to form asylums. Still they were Chris- 
tians, those early English ; no sooner w^ere they 
convinced of the truth of Christianity, than they 
set up throughout the land the simple emblem 
of their new^ faith. 

On every hilltop crosses were raised, and the 
nation always bowed in respectful recognition of 
that sacred emblem. 

At this opening of the sixteenth century, 



112 A Wanderer's Legend 

Britain or England is the most Christian nation 
of the world. 

It does seem to me, your reverences, that 
cities at times after serious conflagrations, have 
risen into greater magnificence ; so England after 
all the invasions and scourgings of the earher 
centuries, has long since become a model of all 
that is great and good, and where once stood 
mystic shrines, temples have risen everywhere to 
the true God. 

I have always realized the force of religion ; it 
has been my chief concern wherever I have 
gone. In many climes I have been impressed 
that the towers and spires at places of worship 
on the hilltops, were pointing to the Divine 
Being on high in whose honor they had been 
erected. And in no country do they more 
greatly abound than in this England, the ancient 
home of the Northmen." 



CHAPTER XX 

DANEMARK 

" I WOULD remind the prelates who have given 
attention to the two sections of my narrative, 
that though I am about to speak of another 
national organization, it was still those adven- 
turers of the almost polar regions, who founded 
the country on which I shall give you a short 
notice. It was a branch of those same North- 
men who joined in the enterprising group of 
Scandinavians, and settled Danemark. 

They took possession of, and built habitations 
in, the islands Fiinen, Zeeland, Falster, Laaland, 
Langeland, and the peninsula extending north 
from the continent bounded on the west by the 
North Sea, and on the east by the Baltic. 

They were indeed a nation of men of great 

endurance ; from the earliest foundation of the 

nation they were brave warriors, seeking and 

making conquests on the Baltic Sea. Courteous 

113 



114 A Wanderer^s Legend 

and friendly to strangers and tolerant to Israel- 
ites, giving all emigrants every opportunity to 
join in the great enterprise of making a living. 

We have passed in a few moments considera- 
tion the ages in which each nation was founded 
and established. 

What changes are to be seen in such a life- 
time as my erratic existence has witnessed. 

At one time Danemark was encroaching so 
on the shores of the east sea, to the north of the 
main continent, that the surrounding nations 
formed military orders of chivalry, whose mem- 
bers succeeded finally in crippling the power of 
the depredating Danish hordes. 

I may mention to your ecclesiastical assembly, 
that for several centuries during my visits to the 
north, the east, and the west of Europe, I still 
found many pagans in Danemark. It required 
time and much effort to win them -over to your 
faith. In fact there were many forms and 
systems of worship existing in those islands, 
even in the second and third centuries. 

The belief in Baal was still flourishing ; you 
may perhaps ask what that worship was ; the 



A Wanderer's Legend 1 1 J 

adoration of a man, not their ancestor, but 
ancient Belus, King of Assyria, whom they set 
up for adoration, in figures of stone, metal and 
wood. What power could he have had, to help 
those who prayed and made sacrifices to his 
memory ? He had lived long before the worship 
to him was set up. His existence had ended. 
He had yielded his body to worms which had 
left but ashes. Many of the people of northern 
nations continued to believe, or professed to 
have faith in the worship of Baal, because they 
perceived the simplicity of the religion of Christ 
offered to them, and they feared its power to 
supplant the mythical faith of their fathers. 

Therefore they discouraged even the consider- 
ation of Christianity. Little by little, however, 
the Danes followed other nations of the North, 
learned of Christ, and once that they understood 
his message of love, they accepted and held fast 
to the promise of his saving power. Simple and 
beautiful as was the religion of the God Man 
whom I repulsed in his moment of suffering, it 
was only propagated slowly in these islands" of 
the l^altic Sea. Yet like certain seeds, when it 



1 1 6 A Wanderer's Legend 

did take root, it held fast, and has become a 
power in the final civilization of Europe. 

I found that during the driving cold winds of 
the cheerless winters in Danemark, the people 
kept closer to their hearth-stones, through super- 
stitious fear. Their literature gave them wonder- 
ful stories and rumors of the appearance of 
mythical terrors in their region. Even when I 
passed through their villages, children regarded 
me with manifest fear ; such were the stories told 
of my mysterious life, that women, children, and 
even stalwart men feared to see me pass. All 
men were warned to shun me. Where and how 
could I console my heart ! My soul rebelled ; 
but cold or heat, I was forced to encounter; I 
still marched on, through Danemark to other 
settlements and people on that. Northern Sea." 



CHAPTER XXI 

HOLLAND 

" When in the second century a. d. I visited 
the Frisians, they were the principal or more im- 
portant inhabitants of Holland. They had fol- 
lowed the original Celts, and when I spoke with 
them, they inferred by their expressions of con- 
tentment, that they had really found a country 
where they could establish themselves. I still saw 
there descendants of the Eburones, the Chamavi, 
the Bructeri, the Usipets, the Cambri, and other 
rugged emigrants from the North. Like almost 
all the new nations of Europe, they had been 
conquered and appropriated by the stronger 
Southern powers. In the third century the 
Franks took possession, and during their control 
there were continual struggles. 

I met there the noblest princes, strong, well- 
developed, beautiful men, brave, chivalrous, but at 
times among them rose vicious intriguers. Cer- 
tain features of their government were peculiarly 

117 



ii8 A Wanderer's Legend 

oppressive. The rich estates had the right to 
claim military protection, and receive defense in 
proportion to the taxes levied upon them. It 
was not until the time of Dagobert I, in the 
seventh century that your Christian religion was 
introduced into the Netherlands. 

Fifty years later, Willibroard, a Bishop, gave 
strength to the new faith, which from that time 
forward was well founded, for it stood the strife of 
paganism, and the attacks of men of many faiths. 

In the eighth century, Wolfram of Sens be- 
came a great pillar of the church, and later Saint 
Boniface. Charles the Great was powerful, stern, 
and his determination conquered the minds and 
hearts of doubting pagans. 

Several centuries saw many monarchs from 
various countries in power. Just now since 1304 
I have seen William III on the throne, giving 
promise of a 'wise administration, I went among 
the people as much as possible ; on their boats, 
into their religious meetings, inspected their 
trades, and generally was made welcome by all 
classes. 

Their very curiosity in my strange personality. 



A Wanderer's Legend no 

caused them to receive me, and desire to speak 
with me. 

However, one day at a village fair, I was just 
walking away from a booth of carved wooden 
ware, when a surly fellow recognized me, and 
cried after me, ' Go on, you Hebrew crane, we 
know you here. You scourged our Saviour 
in Jerusalem ; you did not heed him, when, 
trembling with fatigue, he spoke to you. And 
when he tottered and fell with the cross, you 
struck him with a leather strap, as heartless men 
do beat a fallen horse to make him rise and re- 
sume his toil.' Your reverences, this was a libel 
on me, but what could I do ? It was useless to 
reply to angry, unreasonable men. I moved on, 
wounded, not incensed, for I must confess to 
your eminences, I did respect those earnest 
Christians of Holland, they were so consistent." 

" Our old friend," said the Moderator Theo- 
logian, with increased interest, "we hear you 
from day to day ; we are about to close the day's 
session ; I am sure we are all grateful for your in- 
teresting recital, and after repose we hope to 
meet again in this sacred precinct." 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE DRUIDS 

" I WISH to speak to your reverences to-day of 
an ancient religious people. We cannot speak 
of them as a nation. A sect that within the 
shadows of colossal stone monuments, gathered 
in several parts of Europe, for their peculiar de- 
votions. We may safely speak of them as a re- 
ligious sect; traditions describe their strange 
services amidst their ponderous monuments. Of 
these, great monoliths still exist in France, Eng- 
land, and at Walcheren in Holland, where I saw 
their altars. 

They do not seem to have had what you call 
a home; they were nomads, but seemed to have 
moved from one station of their community to 
another, in different parts of this continent of 
Europe. 

Wherever I have wandered I have found all 
men to have some form of religion, either of 

I20 



A Wanderer's Le":end 121 



their own invention, inherited, or revealed. 
Amongst the most impressive and yet reasonable, 
were the religious services of those Druids. 
They stood amidst those stone monoliths and 
before their stone altars, to express daily the 
gratitude of their hearts for mercies received. 

In fact theirs was one of the earliest forms of 
worship in Gaul. Notwithstanding the strange- 
ness of their ceremonies they seem to have be- 
lieved in a Divine Creator of the universe and of 
themselves. Although their sect, and their form 
of religious worship were in their decline, in 
Gaul, before the time of Caesar, we know that 
membership in their order was not so easily 
gained as is connection with your church, nor 
was it so simple as your religious belief in one 
divine man as a Saviour. Novices had to sub- 
mit to rigorous training of more than fifteen 
years before they could be received into full 
membership. 

A belief in the immortality of the soul added 
to their adoration of the morning sun, the ever- 
returning and comforting orb of day, satisfied 
thousands of earnest souls eager for consolation. 



122 A Wanderer's Legend 

In their human sacrifices which occurred very 
rarely, the Hfe then given up was of an offender, 
one who was unworthy of existence. 

I have seen ceremonies in the retreats among 
their favorite oak-tree groves. They performed 
some thrilHng acts. I was greatly impressed 
when I witnessed their anguineum, a serpent's 
egg floating against the current of running 
water ; even when a strong wind should have 
driven it in a contrary direction it ascended a 
stream. 

At times this egg was thrown in the air, when 
a brother, to ascertain his good or ill fortune, 
sought to catch it. Strange people were they ! 
Seers were they ! Magi found those wonderful 
Menhirs and stone Cromlechs in Morbihan ; 
they so arranged them that all who stood di- 
rectly bbfore their altar stone, could see and 
adore the rising monarch of the day ; for at that 
epoch, the line of the avenue beyond that altar 
stone left not even an intervening branch be- 
tween the dawning sun and the worshippers. 

I remember that the oldest inhabitants held 
the tradition that another wanderer, an evil 



A Wanderer's Legend 123 

spirit, had been forced to move all these great 
stones, and place them here in this order as 
also in Wiltshire in England. 

Naturally only some interior evil one could 
have been conscripted ; the chief of Satanic 
power has never served personally. It has 
always been his prerogative to rule. The Prince 
of Darkness has indeed proved himself a monarch. 

When walking through Morbihan in France, 
on a bright moonlight night, I noticed men in 
white robes moving about, standing before one 
Menhir after another ; occasionally they would 
prostrate themselves during a few moments as in 
devotion. I counted about one thousand mono- 
liths at Kermario, and near Carnac I saw Men- 
hirs standing like a great army of stones, their 
narrowest ends entering the earth ; there were 
at times over ten thousand, though inhabitants 
of the region with whom I conversed informed 
me that several thousand monoliths had been des- 
troyed, broken up, and used for the construc- 
tion of walls. Every Menhir, so broken up, 
yielded from forty to fifty tons of building ma- 
terial. 



124 ^ Wanderer's Legend 

In the close of the first century on going 
through Britain, I saw a number of Druids in 
that almost island, — Anglesea. That little pen- 
insula was then only connected by a narrow 
strip of sandy soil, which some three hundred 
years later was completely washed through. 

The Druids lingered longer there than in the 
interior country. Already in 41 A. d. the Em- 
peror Claudius had given orders for the suppres- 
sion of the Druids ; although their ranks con- 
tained men of dignity and nobility, their peculiar 
religious opinions were such as condemned them 
in the eyes of the Roman Emperor. 

On returning to Anglesea twenty years later, 
I found that the Roman troops under Suetonius 
PauHnius, had disturbed them, and they were 
scattered. In yS a. d. they were really driven 
away, though their faith held sway during many 
years in the mind of the Celtic tribes, who were 
inclined to superstitious beliefs, and frequently 
resorted to those stone altars to greet the morn- 
ing sun. Those Celts still believed that the 
snake's egg still floated against the current of the 
floating sea, so that when the wind blew from 



A Wanderer's Legend 125 

the land and from the east, though the sea 
naturally flowed in the direction driven by the 
wind, the egg stubbornly moved towards the 
quarter from which the wind came. 

With the growth and establishment of your 
religion, I saw many isms vanish from the earth, 
and so disappeared all traces of the Druids ex- 
cept their monoliths. 

Your eminence, a member of this conclave 
has asked me to give my experience of my rela- 
tions with some Christian country ; I will speak 
to you of France, after a night's repose." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

FRANCE 

On reassembling Ahasuerus continued, 

" The interest your reverences feel in that 
country is very natural and reasonable. France, 
outside of Rome, at this moment is the very 
household of Roman Catholicism. At first 
known as Ancient Gaul, that country was in a 
measure settled by Germans, and even colonized 
by emigrants from Asia. France, the country 
beautiful, has often sheltered me when moving 
across the continent. 

Under certain dynasties, thousands of my race 
found happy homes within its borders. I have 
known it long and well. I know its seaboard, 
its rivers, its mountains, its plains, its hospitable 
cities. 

To the credit of your denomination, wherever 
one may go in that fair land of Gaul, symbols of 
Christianity rise from the domes and spires of 
your houses of worship. 

126 



A Wanderer's Legend 127 

For you, probably I know nothing of great 
interest in France, until the political incident in 
the end of the fifth century, when Clovis I, son 
of Childeric, turned out the Roman hordes from 
part of Gaul, and the Merovingian dynasty was 
founded. Clovis was the first Christian King of 
France. During a long period there arose great 
defenders of the faith, which was frequently im- 
periled by various invasions of Arabs, barbarians, 
and vandals. The Mahometan power in the 
eighth century was great ; it threatened to sweep 
European civilization and Christianity from the 
continent. Happily for your people, valiant 
Leo of Isauria, defended the city of Constantine 
against the Mussulmans. 

In that century I turned to France in the fond 
hope, that with that people, in that beautiful 
country, I might find repose. Alas the Mero- 
vingians were brutal, never at peace among 
themselves. They could not tolerate Jews ; I 
could not disguise my features ; away they sent 
me at that time onward, ever onward — but it 
was to return in another hundred years, under 
more gentle and reasonable rulers. 



128 A Wanderer's Legend 

In the tenth century Northmen who had be- 
come Christians, having espoused your faith, 
colonized in Rouen, and expanding their settle- 
ments by degrees to St. Malo, founded the land 
of the Normans, later known as Normandy. 

King Odo gave the estuary of the Seine to 
them, which added to their commercial power. 

The religious events in the history of France 
will be more interesting to you than either its 
commercial progress or political record. 

During the last years of the thirteenth, and 
far through the fourteenth centuries, there were 
serious schisms ; everywhere dissensions in the 
councils of the Roman Church. 

Men in power and those seeking place and 
power, were striving to advance themselves. 
Your profession of prelates of the Church was 
then a business enterprise, like any other com- 
mercial undertaking. 

Divines sought favor and opulence for them- 
selves, and once in position, they thought of 
their friends, and sought to place them in- lucra- 
tive offices. 

In all those years throughout more than half 



A Wanderer's Legend 129 

a century, the Christian world beheld that in- 
tolerable spectacle of bitter dissension. The 
thrones of two holy fathers or pontiffs, one in 
Italy at Rome, the other the rightful Pope, com- 
pelled to live at unreasonable expense at Avig- 
non in France. Permit me to say to you holy 
men here assembled, that was a pitiable sight ; 
both Popes acknowledged equally to be holy, 
and yet attacking one another with counter 
excommunications and reproaches, yes, even 
anathemas in the form of Bulls. 

I that have lived through all these centuries 
can assure you that the exiled Popes in France, 
Clement VI, Innocent VI, Urban V, and Greg- 
ory XI, were the true fathers of the Church ; 
Those Popes who for the sake of religion and for 
peace, were forced to leave the scene of conten- 
tion in Rome, and to knock at the door of 
France for an asylum. 

When they were established in Avignon they 
administered justly the affairs of the holy chair, 
and in every way attended to the true interests 
of the faith. 

After 1499, harmony was restored, and Rome 



130 A Wanderer's Legend 

again became the home of the Popes. Those 
difficulties in the church led to many assemblies 
such as you have formed, and even secret con- 
claves, with a view sometimes of reuniting 
and pacifying the Church of St. Peter, but 
oftener to obtain power for the delegates as- 
sembled. 

The idea of the fathers of the Church handing 
down to all nations their missals of prayers, cer- 
tainly overcame one difficulty in the early cen- 
turies in France. In the Moyen age, the lan- 
guage in France differed in the northern and 
southern sections. The language south of the 
Loire was called the * langue d'oc,' whilst the 
language spoken by the people north of that 
river was the ' langue d'oil' For example, there 
Avas this marked difference, in speaking their lan- 
guage, that those in the Midi or south said * och ' 
for yes, whilst in the north ' oil ' signified yes. 
The oil language was formed in the north where 
the Latin had been spoken until a later date than 
elsewhere. 

Colonists of many nationalities had occupied 
the northern provinces, and the language there 



A Wanderer's Legend 131 

had a harshness which was not found in the 
Meridian or south. 

This language, d'oil of the north, had tones or 
sounds, which were very sonorous, and contrib- 
uted much to the construction and beauty of 
the French language as known and spoken in this 
sixteenth century. 

What may chiefly interest this conclave is the 
fact that to-day, France is the seat of continental 
learning, and the mass of its population profess and 
live up to the tenets of your Catholic Church. 

If the Moderator Theologian feels that your 
august assembly has yet time this evening, to 
hear from the old traveler, I will take you but a 
short distance with the hope of again interesting 
you. Like the emigrants eight centuries ago, 
we have only to cross the boundary river, when 
I will speak to you of a large section of the 
Eastern world, in fact that important country in 
which your excellencies are assembled. 

You are meeting here to strengthen the bonds 
and forces of your church in this country — Ger- 
many. Yet dissensions have disturbed the har- 
mony of your association." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

GERMANY 

" It was not until 400 years ago, that I heard of 
your enterprising ancestors — called Germans. I 
have known and mingled with the Istaevones on 
the banks of the great river Rhine. In the cen- 
tral districts were the more numerous Hermi- 
nones ; they were tall, vigorous men, and lived 
simply and long, that is those who were not cut 
off in battle or the hunt, for they were from all 
times inveterate warriors and hunters. Early in 
their career, most of their communities were 
divided into several castes or classes ; slaves, 
freemen, merchantmen, and nobility. When 
journeying in their northern country, I found 
them trusting in gods of the air, the sky, and 
many mythological divinities peculiar to their 
race. 

At Koeln, on the great river, I saw a statue in 

132 



A Wanderer's Legend 133 

massive silver, representing one of their principal 
divinities ; pilgrims by thousands came there 
from every direction, and affectionately regarded 
that statue under the name of Teutis. 

As soon as there was a prospect of commerce 
in your country, members of my downtrodden 
race, seeking life, and Hght, and sustenance, 
colonized among your people. I, with the 
natural prejudices of a Jew of Jerusalem, thought 
also to stop there. I, the son of a carpenter of 
the Holy City, felt that my race would take their 
part in elevating your nation which they adopted. 
Many of them married there, and some accepted 
your religion. 

I have made frequent visits to Nuremberg. 
In 1 309 I happened to be here when another 
conclave was assembled, to consider the difficulty 
which had arisen, when one of your Popes was 
compelled to seek a place for the pontifical chair 
at Avignon. 

I think of my people whenever I come here to 
Nuremberg, where now stands your Frauen- 
kirche. 

In 1 348, on that very spot was a synagogue, 



134 A Wanderer's Legend 

where my race peacefully worshiped as they 
were wont to do, but the authorities of your 
church would not tolerate our inoffensive taber- 
nacle, so that in the next year it was razed to 
the ground. Persecution was then the lot of the 
children of Israel in your country. 

Your people believed in the miracles wrought 
by St. Sebaldus. My people did not frown on 
you for your delusions, nor did they interfere 
with your ceremonies. 

Perhaps, however, our trials were blessings in 
disguise, for we have striven to live at peace 
with the German nation, and to-day we are 
happily established throughout your land. 

The principal important events in the history 
of your church, have occurred in my weary life. 
When Arius the Alexandrian priest went before 
the Byzantine people, with his proposed amend- 
ments to the mysterious doctrines of your 
Church, Constantine called a council, somewhat 
similar to that in which you are now sitting. It 
was known as the Council of Nice. Then and 
there the Nicsean creed was drawn up. I, 
though always an Israelite, have felt a deep con- 



A Wanderer's Legend 135 

cern in all those events, and after due considera- 
tion, I sometimes have not wondered at the 
aversion of your church to my race. 

From my earliest knowledge of the forefathers 
of some of you Germans, they were a people 
of war ; that was their favorite occupation. Led 
on by their chiefs they deemed it less honorable 
to earn by manual labor, what they found they 
could obtain by military conquest. 

What nourishment, vegetable and cereal, as 
could be obtained from the soil, was earned by 
the labor of their women in the fields. True, 
the Germans were examples of manly courage 
and female virtue. Their name as a nation, 
Germani, by which they were known, implied 
that they were natural warriors. 

The Germans on the west, crossed the frontier 
river in the fourth century, and after conflicts 
with the Gauls, settled for a while in what is now 
France. 

Your ancestors were not only vigorous, but 
were intelligent and enterprising. From that 
German race rose the very Merovingian kings 
that afterwards sat in power in France. 



136 A Wanderer's Legend 

You have only to imagine that we cross the 
Pyrenees to the west, and we find ourselves in 
another country, where the doctrines of your 
Church and its adherents predominated." 



CHAPTER XXV 

SPAIN 

" When in young life I, Ahasuerus, was forced 
to commence my walks about the world, it 
seemed to me, as it did to my fellow-country- 
men, that Iberia was on the horizon, and that 
when the day closed and night was upon us, it 
was because the sun had set behind the Iberian 
Mountains, and that from those heights one 
might look out on to the vast expanse of the 
great salt river, of which men knew no other 
barrier. Although several Phoenician expedi- 
tions from Carthage visited and sought to open 
up commercial relations with the Iberians and 
Celts who were already established on those 
shores. 

My father taught me of evenings, from his old 
manuscripts, and there I learned that the most 
westerly country of our continent was known 
by the ancient tribes of our faith as Tarshish. 

137 



138 A Wanderer's Legend 

As a boy I learned of the Roman occupation of 
that distant land by Pompey, afterwards by 
Caesar, and again under the legions of the Em- 
peror Augustus. 

When I went there in the second century, I 
visited only towns on the seacoast, already 
founded by the enterprising Phoenician mariners, 
which had already been improved and beautified 
by the Roman occupation. I entered Taraco- 
nensis, Lusitania, and Baetica, and floated in a 
primitive boat down the Bsetis, now the Guadal- 
quivir. 

On returning there a century later the Em- 
peror Vespasian was ruling over nearly 400 
cities. That country, now Catholic Spain, grew 
and increased in prosperous provinces. 

In the third century that progress was ar- 
rested by Prankish invasions. I therefore 
avoided the peninsula and crossed to the home 
of the Moors, in North Africa, and although I 
continued to see evidences of sincerity, in the 
strange religious ceremonies of the Moorish 
tribes of that epoch, I learned of their bitter 
hatred of the Iberians, and saw that their in- 



A Wanderer's Legend 139 

vasions of Spain were rather for conquest and 
booty, than through any truly reHgious 
prejudice. 

These marauding attacks continued to annoy 
the early adherents to your religion in Spain. 
Again in the fifth century barbarians ravished 
the country. 

I saw the occupation and rule of the Visi- 
goths ; fortunately I was away in China, when 
the barbarous Arabs interrupted the course of 
civilization in Spain. 

Notwithstanding all the Moorish invasions, 
which were really plundering expeditions, the 
country survived wonderfully all those periods 
of trial. Although those expeditions were at- 
tended with even greater success than the Moors 
had expected, the wonderful power of your 
Christian Catholic Church was not seriously 
weakened. 

My race were largely represented in that 
country ; and as ever, they were the victims of 
great persecution. 

I witnessed the dispersion of my people ; 
neither historians nor your reverences should 



140 A Wanderer's Legend 

wonder, that after years and years of cruel treat- 
ment, my suffering race, stung by their wrongs, 
arose and helped the Moors in their invasion of 
Spain. 

Though I was frequently interested in that 
Spanish peninsula, yet I remember nothing im- 
portant for my recital before you, until during 
and after the Mahometan rule. Even then there 
were constant scenes of warfare and political 
strife. Much of the time Spain was under the 
rule of an Eastern Caliphate, all of whose man- 
dates emanated from the Moslems of Baghdad 
and Damascus. Heartrending are my recollec- 
tions of several succeeding eras. 

In the ninth and tenth centuries your Christian 
sect, under Alfonso III, he whom they called 
' Great,' established more permanently your 
Catholic religion which, with varying stability, 
has become more and more the faith of Spain. 

I naturally remember vividly an incident in 
the close of the eleventh century, when, after 
the conquest of Saragossa, the excited people 
recognized me as a stranger and a Jew ; some 
ruffians cried out against me ; I was soon fol- 



A Wanderer's Legend 141 

lowed by an infuriated mob, taken before a 
magistrate and charged with mendacity. Fortu- 
nately as in the trying scene of your Redeem- 
er's life, there arose on that occasion a spirit of 
justice in the mind of the magistrate, who nobly 
saved me from their wrath, and graciously se- 
creted me in his house during some days, until 
the tumult had subsided, when at night he ac- 
companied me without the town, and safely I 
resumed my wanderings. 

In mingling among those people at other 
times, I saw Christians compelled to profess 
Mahometanism. They were husbandmen in the 
suburbs of one of the earliest cities of Spain, 
then known as Gades, since called Cadiz. The 
original success of that city was owing to the 
colonizing enterprise of the Phoenicians." 

The Moderating Theologian addressing the 
old man said, " My aged friend, you must have 
seen many administrations in the Spanish penin- 
sula." " Yes, your reverence, and I saw great and 
continual changes. Well do I remember when 
the various nations along the entire length and 
breadth of the shores of the Mediterranean, 



14^ A Wanderer's Legend 

looked for defense and protection from the great 
parent empire at Rome. 

In many of the old sacred buildings in Spain, 
I saw effigies which I at first supposed were rep- 
resentations of a wanderer like myself; however, 
they proved to be effigies of Saint Christopher, 
whom the legend of your church calls the ferry- 
man of Christ. 

In regard to the Roman Catholic prelates ru- 
ling through a long period of time in Spain, I 
must give you the result of my personal obser- 
vations : I have often noticed that men in power 
frequently care more for their own comfort than 
the interest of their religion, whatever creed they 
may profess. 

I often felt that many of the dignitaries of 
your Catholic Church in Spain, merited censure 
on that account. Yet in no country have the 
faithful of your sect contributed more generously 
to the erection and internal decoration of 
churches and cathedrals than throughout Spain." 



CHAPTER XXVI 

BAALBEC AND PALMYRA 

" From Spain, late in the autumn of the year 
271 A. D., I walked through Italy ; the Emperor 
Aurelian was in power at Rome. I knew 
already his intentions in regard to Palmyra; I 
had often wished to return there, and now, fear- 
ing that the crisis was near, I decided to make 
this second journey thither without passing 
through Rome. Seven weeks later I secured an 
engagement as deck hand on a sailing vessel 
with freight and soldiers sent by Aurelian as 
reinforcement for the Roman colonies. 

We left Naples at night enroute to Northern 
Africa, where we touched at Carthage ; having 
previously visited that city when coming from 
Ouedna, I only remained while we disembarked 
the military and the stores. Thence to Sicily, 
where by night ^tna belched forth its terrible 
fire which for some hours lighted us on our way 
to Crete, Cyprus, Syra, to Berytus. 

'43 



144 ^ Wanderer's Legend 

On arriving at Berytus, as soon as I could ob- 
tain release from my engagement on the ship, I 
went to land. There others fitted themselves 
out with camels, attendants and supplies for the 
overland journey ; while I, poor wandering pe- 
destrian, strode away on my own legs with little 
or no preparation, always leaning on my faith- 
ful staff. 

Many others, merchants, military, and caravan 
attendants being enroute, I decided to take the 
less frequented way by Baalbec. 

Up and up — and over the Anti-Lebanon and 
through desolate wastes I found my way to 
Baalbec, after having passed the quarries where 
had been hewn the great stones of seventy and 
eighty feet in length and of proportionate 
breadth. 

On entering the city one of the first objects 
arresting my attention was the temple of Jupi- 
ter erected by Antoninus Pius with the intention 
of propagating Paganism in Heliopolis. The 
people were already among the most idolatrous 
of Orientals. 

Then I recognized that it was in Baalbec 



A Wanderer's Legend 145 

where the people worshipped the god Baal, as 
the name of the city implies. It had an enclo- 
sing limit of about four miles. What especially 
interested me about the temples, was the enor- 
mous size of the monoliths of which the walls 
were constructed. In those temples the devout 
worshiped the sun and therefore at the time of 
my visit, the city was known as the Heliopolis 
of the desert. Men adored the sun when its 
rays dawned on those piles of stone. This form 
of religion I then learned had long before been 
introduced by Egyptian Colonists who had 
adopted that worship which in their country 
was deemed heretic. Two statues, those of 
Osiris and Isis, convinced me that they were 
the work of artists of that country first visited 
in my career — Egypt. 

Similar immense blocks of stone were to be 
seen in the public buildings, and another temple 
built and ornamented by the Phoenicians was 
one of the grand features of the city of the Sun. 
When I visited the round temple of Venus and 
witnessed the revolting ceremonies, I thought of 
the contrast with the pure Christian religion. 



146 A Wanderer's Legend 

The Emperor Constantine afterwards issued an 
edict against those Hcentious rites. 

I had come to that city remote, as I thought, 
from civilization, hoping that there I would find 
no reminder of your Saviour, * the Nazarene.' 
I thought that perhaps the tidings from Bethle ■ 
hem of Judea had not reached Baalbec, and that 
Christ would not be known among those great 
walls which had so often resounded to the 
prayers and cries for consolation from the dis- 
ciples of Baal. 

But also at Baalbec there were Christians who 
had been banished from Alexandria — earnest 
Christians assembled at the setting of the sun to 
join one another in songs of praise and gratitude 
for mercies received. Once I would not believe 
that your people were right, yet everywhere I 
have seen convincing proofs of the power and 
truth of your Immanuel. 

Seeing these despised Christians at their devo- 
tions, I was for a moment reminded of that day 
in my young life when I thought differently. 
As I saw Christ that day approaching with the 
cross, I could not resist expressing my hatred 



A Wanderer's Legend 147 

of him. I looked upon him then as one who 
would supplant our king ; in that light I re- 
garded Christ as a usurper and an impostor. 
Now centuries after, when too late, alas, I know 
better. Although I admired Christianity, the 
penalty I was enduring for that error caused me 
to be wounded anew whenever I saw Christian 
assemblies. 

Whilst we Israelites make no converts, thou- 
sands of Jews have accepted the religion of 
Christ. 

In the first century I studied the question 
from sacred manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek and 
Latin. 

During some fifty years I regarded your re- 
ligion as a faith of yesterday ; I new am 
convinced that it doth prepare a man for 
eternity. 

I had viewed Baalbec's palaces, its streets 
well paved with great flat stones and supplied 
with fountains of water with passers-by ; I had 
quitted the temple of Baal, the Temple of the 
Sun, and joined in the motley throng promena- 
ding on the terraces of the fortified walls. 



148 A Wanderer's Legend 

Meeting with no further inducement to loiter, 
I turned my back on those ponderous walls and 
those grand temples as once more I started out 
on the red sands of the desert. Beyond the 
Anti-Lebanon, on my lonely way, I frequently 
encountered remains of travelers who had fallen 
by the way — the sight caused me regret that I 
too could not have ceased my existence then and 
there as I passed those skeletons — those monu- 
ments of human frailty bleaching under the rays 
of the sun, reposing alongside of the bones of 
camels and elephants. 

No I could not share their lot ! onward still 
onward ! Turbaned strangers, Arabs, Ethi- 
opians glanced at me for an instant and pursued 
their way ; they thought not to interrogate me 
as your reverences do. 

On the third day I did meet some one who 
spoke with me and who proved to be a God- 
given companion. 

He was a Jew trader, David of Palmyra ; I 
saw his camel stumble with the weight of the 
load and fall ; the cord which bound the pack- 
ages into the rack was detached, the merchan- 



A Wanderer's Legend 149 

dise was scattered on the sand. I ran to the 
man's assistance; while we were trying to 
gather the load, two vultures, seeing the acci- 
dent, quickly darted down and would have at- 
tacked the fallen camel on his bleeding neck had 
I not beaten them off with my long staff. I 
then assisted to raise his beast which grunted as 
though it was badly hurt ; however, we loaded 
the rack and resumed our journey. The man 
was very grateful, and suggested that we should 
continue together — David being a resident of 
Palmyra, knew it better than I who had only 
been there once before. 

Our journey was without many incidents, 
though the next day we overtook and passed a 
party of eighteen or twenty Jews with children 
on the way to Palmyra ; they had encamped in 
a small oasis — they spoke with us and offered 
some of the broth they had brewed. Though 
our race has not been accredited with generosity 
it certainly is very philanthropic. 

One wandering over the world is seldom 
alone ; a cosmopolitan always meets some one 
with whom he may fraternize, so we walked to- 



150 A Wanderer's Legend 

gether and became quite friends; David gave 
me much useful information. 

Among the important facts he sought to im- 
press upon my mind was his admiration of his 
Queen, the fair and good Zenobia. After walk- 
ing seven long days, I espied in the distance, 
groups of palm-trees, and beyond them on the 
horizon dark objects with here and there a spot 
ghstening with reflected sunlight which assured 
me that one more journey was nearly accom- 
plished. 

Later on I stopped during some minutes on 
an eminence looking down on the city we were 
about to enter ; though not alone I mused and 
soliloquized. Memories of my earlier acquaint- 
ance with that flourishing oasis filled my 
thoughts. Palmyra probably was originally an 
Arab settlement. Although on a fertile oasis it 
was not an agricultural centre. Commerce was 
the object of that people ; the trade of Palmyra 
was that of caravans which in the second and 
third centuries abounded. Like unto all human 
beings they intuitively felt the need of invisible 
divine protection, and to the extent of their in- 



A Wanderer's Legend 151 

telligence they were devout worshipers of Baal, 
a deity whose effigy they adored. 

That evening I saw the Hght of the setting 
sun on the then resplendent capital of Zenobia 
— Palmyra with its sumptuous palaces. 

When at last we approached the Odaenathus 
tower gate I quickly noticed that one of the 
sentries recognized in me a stranger; he even 
crossed the archway and consulted with the 
guard ; he, however, concluded to let me pass ; 
thus I was enabled to follow my companion to 
an apartment near the public markets, where I 
could find some repose and be near to the prin- 
cipal street of the city. 

O ; what sights there were on those streets of 
Palmyra — the camel drivers of so many eastern 
nationalities — Armenians, Egyptians, Persians, 
Asians, Saracens, slave dealers, fruit merchants, 
women of every type and color, bedecked with 
coins of all mintages. 

My rest was light owing to the hilarity and 
cries of the multitude — so that early on each 
morning I found myself strolling in the charm- 
ing thoroughfares. 



152 A Wanderer's Legend 

It will be difficult for your reverences to imag- 
ine, or form an idea of the extent and grandeur 
of that city, with its triumphal arches at either 
entrance. 

There was a double colonnade extending nearly 
to the outer walls at northwest to southeast, a 
distance of nearly four thousand feet. There 
were more than seven hundred columns about 
sixty feet high — towers through which arched 
ways led to other streets — domes, obelisks, pal- 
aces. The contrast of complexion and of cos- 
tume in many of the throng, the pallid Persian 
faces with deep orange and black kerchiefs on 
their heads, the reddened cheeks of the south- 
ern Arabs, the black faces of Ethiopians in 
gowns and turbans of snowy white, all added 
to the showy picture. Itinerant pedlers crying 
their wares for sale, the noise of complaining 
animals being goaded. Again, resting-places — 
your reverences perhaps do not consider that 
true enjoyment should be found in gratification 
of the appetite, yet permit me to tell you that 
when I passed those bazaars, I saw men recli- 
ning with their heads thrown back drinking 



A Wanderer's Legend 153 

golden wine from skin pouches, who evidently 
were finding the enjoyment they desired. 

I looked at the various artisans in their Httle 
shops open to the air and sunlight — gem engra- 
vers, — and by chance I saw a Greek who had skil- 
fully engraved a portrait-intaglio of the Queen 
and one Hkewise of her lamented husband, 
Odaenathus. 

There were many Greek incisori and other 
skilled workmen in the realm, already nominally 
a protectorate of the Roman empire. Palmyra 
had its characteristic ornamentations of jewels, 
the shops were showy with all imaginable art 
objects cunningly displayed to entice purchasers, 
citizens as well as strangers. 

During my first visit I had seen and admired 
great and good Odaenathus. This time, when 
the multitude were not yet on the streets, I took 
occasion to stand before certain monuments and 
pedestals of statues and consoled myself by 
reading the evidences of the appreciation of the 
valor and worth of Odaenathus or Nypatikos, as 
his name was frequently inscribed. There were 
also similar inscriptions on the pedestals among 



154 A Wanderer's Legend 

the columns in the long avenue which caused 
me to realize with regret that Aurelian was 
already reaching out his hand to obHterate all 
those evidences of real worth and grandeur. I 
felt that Rome could not brook or permit the 
undisturbed supremacy of such a rival. The 
government of Palmyra was at that moment 
fearing Aurelian. 

Most nations I had found to be governed by 
tyrants, selfish autocrats ; here in Palmyra, Zeno- 
bia was loved by her subjects. Many said to 
me, ' When our queen is not here, it is not day ; 
her presence lights our world.' 

I have seen the day in Palmyra when they 
spoke of Christianity as a superstition. I re- 
garded with interest the worship of Baal, Baal- 
ites, Jews, Egyptians, Parsees, the followers of 
Zoroaster, for Sapor always had a colony of his 
minions residing at Palmyra. 

You Christians of your Catholic faith are all 
children of your Pope and universally united. 

In Palmyra there were hosts of pagans, but of 
many persuasions ; and again, they were divided 
among themselves; each sect bowing down be- 



A Wanderer's Legend 155 

fore its own chosen effigy — Jupiter, Minerva, 
Venus ; each inanimate deity had its share of 
adoration. You may imagine how great was 
the number of shrines to accommodate the vari- 
ous worshipers. The majority of them resorted 
many times daily to the Greek ' Temple of the 
Sun.' Of a morning its hundreds of columns 
changed in color as the white marble was red- 
dened by the rays of the rising sun. 

No matter what country I visited in the civi- 
lized Orient, Grecian architecture and Grecian 
art excelled all others. The master ornamenta- 
tion of that epoch was unquestionably planned 
by and executed by Grecian artists. I stood on 
the portico of the bourse among merchants of 
all branches of trade. Her^ and there street 
magicians were always eliciting the wonder of 
the idle crowd. 

During another stroll through streets I found 
a larger stone tablet set into the temple wall 
with an inscription in memory of Odsenathus. 
Odaenathus was always regretted ; he contrib- 
uted much to the pleasure and comfort of his 
people. 



156 A Wanderer's Legend 

During leisure moments of his reign, he was 
fond of manly sports ; he never neglected the 
affairs of the nation, nor his rehgious duties ; he 
was devoted to his queen wife, Zenobia, the 
gentlest of her sex, exacting obedience from all 
in power in her realm ; she was of Arab ances- 
try, had associated with Jews, appreciated their 
worth and favored them when in her power. 
With a recognition of * Divine Supremacy * ever 
in her heart, she withdrew regularly from enter- 
tainments and the excitement of the public 
games to attend to consultations on national 
affairs with the eminent Longinus. This lovely 
queen was a dark beauty ; her snow-white teeth 
showed to advantage with her complexion and 
black eyes. With these thoughts I had fallen 
into a reverie ; soon, however, the noise of the 
commercial throng roused me to less serious 
reflections. 

Mordecaio Loevi, a member of the Royal 
Council who represented the interests of the 
Israelite citizens, called the attention of the 
queen to the fact that I, Ahasuerus, had in my 
wanderings again reached Palmyra. 



A Wanderer's Legend 157 

Mordecaio was highly esteemed by our con- 
tingent, and generally by the court. He knew 
the law of Moses ; he was versed in the Hagio- 
grapha ; he had knowledge of the canon of Ezra ; 
he was authority on the Mischna and the Talmud. 

At Mordecaio's suggestion Zenobia invited 
me to her presence. Already she had seen me 
when she had passed me in her chariot ; I then 
had stopped and respectfully saluted her; she 
quickly gave me a glance of recognition, evi- 
dently noticing my venerable appearance, my 
peculiar personality, the contrast of my old at- 
tire with the gaudy costumes of the native mul- 
titude and with all my unique history, well- 
known to her, secured for me a kind look which 
emboldened me to hope that I might see her 
again. 

On the following day one of the queen's 
retinue approached me and asked if I would 
come towards evening to the palace, as Her 
Majesty would speak with me. 

I did not fail to keep the appointment and 
deeply appreciated the few minutes in which the 
queen questioned me. Her interest in me ap- 



158 A Wanderer's Legend 

peared to increase as she learned more of my 
strange history and facts in regard to all the 
nations I had visited, just as I am now relating 
my experiences to your august reverences. 

During the conversation Her Majesty insisted 
on my being seated. I confess that in my rude 
attire, I felt ill at ease in the midst of so much 
luxury. 

I was not so much attracted by the em- 
bellishments of the atrium where I was speak- 
ing to Her Majesty as with the queen's royal 
beauty ; it was that loveliness which attracted 
every one : — she was to me a noble sympa- 
thizing woman. 

Zenobia was conscious of the adoration of 
her people — she realized the grandeur of her 
court ; yet she was loath to accept advice that 
intended to strengthen her position. 

She could not be made aware of the danger 
of offending Aurelius. With all her good quali- 
ties she would not incline her will to reason. 

Her Majesty questioned me in regard to 
Aurelian ; for reasons already given to your 
reverences, I wished to avoid the subject, know 



A Wanderer's Legend \^g 

ing that no proper impression could be made by 
a direct exposition of the question. I finally said, 
' As thy Majesty has asked my counsel I must 
say, that queen though thou art, beware of that 
man-emperor; take care not to offend Aurelius ! ' 

The audience at an end, Zenobia informed me 
that she had not only been interested in my 
reminiscences, but she assured me that de- 
tails I had given her of other lands were instruc- 
tive. 

Her Majesty sympathized with me in my 
estimation of Rome and its imperial aggrandize- 
ment. She expressed gratitude for the informa- 
tion I had given her in response to her many in- 
terrogations. As was my custom I refused her 
offer that I should partake of food, and felt pleas- 
ure at the evident regret with which she parted 
with me ; nor was this my last audience with the 
Queen Empress. 

I may remark at this point that Zenobia 
reigned in all a little more than five years ! 

On leaving the palace, I walked in apart of the 
city I had not yet seen. Many of the houses of 
the rich in the better quarters of Palmyra had 



i6o A Wanderer's Legend 

arched gateways and spacious courtyards within, 
with groups of animals in stone. 

On days when the fetes of the arena were 
about to occur, the streets leading to the am- 
phitheatre were crowded with an excited, noisy 
multitude, hurrying to obtain good stand-points ; 
they could not go quietly ; their excitement 
caused them to shout, calling to those in advance 
or urging companions, in the rear, to advance. 

Other sounds and sweeter strains at times 
came more welcome to my heart ; there was a 
numerous colony of Israelites in this section ; the 
music I heard with pleasure came from the harps 
of my people and songs in Hebrew of my race. 

Within that very week I was permitted, even 
invited to converse with Zenobia again. 

The Queen's interest in my store of historical 
knowledge of all nations, brought me, by invita- 
tion, into the arena where many of the most 
exciting diversions took place. 

Her Royal Highness spoke Coptic, Syriac, 
Latin and Greek, so that she was able to converse 
fluently with the various guests who always 
found time to turn their eyes from the exciting 



A Wanderer's Legend 161 

scenes of the arena and ensure Her Majesty that 
they were enjoying the combats. 

Zenobia remained until 3 p. m., then Her 
Majesty retired for her daily conference with 
Longinus. 

I confess that this concourse of lions, tigers, 
leopards and gladiators interested me deeply, 
but not in the sense that it did other specta- 
tors ; my feeling was that I would wiUingly, yes 
gladly, have changed places with the noble beasts 
of the forest wdien I saw them expire in the 
conflict. 

While on my way to the amphitheatre I saw 
the throng withdraw to the sidewalks of the street 
to make way for the train of great elephants 
drawing the vans and cages of angry wild ani- 
mals which we now saw turned loose in the 
arena; they seemed to give up their lives freeh', 
rather than suffer longer the pain of their 
bondage. 

One admirable principle of your Church, you 
Catholic Christians do not approve of these cruel 
contests of wild animals in the arena, except as 
in the bull-fights of Spain. 



l62 A Wanderer's Legend 

When I looked upon those imprisoned noble 
animals, I did, at moments, wish that they might 
have seized with their vicious claws the more 
culpable beings who had entrapped and brought 
them from their native domains to fight and tear 
one another for the entertainment of the cruel 
audience ; I breathed with difficulty as I asked 
myself how could the municipaUty induce men, 
human beings, to suffer and to sacrifice their 
lives for the amusement of cowards that would 
see brave men die that they might be amused. 

These entertainments rendered the people 
more and more brutal by affording them oppor- 
tunities to gratify their taste for carnage. 

An exhibition in the arena in which no blood 
was shed was not to the liking of the audience ; 
they delighted in seeing the lions and the tigers, 
especially when they fought with anger; their 
greatest satisfaction was when these ferocious 
beasts lacerated one another, and no conflict was 
complete until one of the contestants was laid 
exhausted on the ground. 

In defense of these gladiatorial entertainments, 
the people of Palmyra believed that witnessing 



A Wanderer's Legend 163 

the contests of animals and accustoming them- 
selves to seeing their blood and agony, helped to 
render them insensible to danger, and above all 
to relieve them from the fear of death. 

The pagan Romans considered those weak 
and without courage who could not look on such 
scenes with indifference. 

Among the redeeming qualities in the munic- 
ipal management of Palmyra, as in other Ori- 
ental cities, I perceived evidences of civilization 
in their benevolent consideration of the horses 
and camels, which bore the heat of the day. At 
every corner were fountains supplied by acque- 
ducts ; there the passing animals could quench 
their thirst. All was hfe and movement in the 
streets. Continually with the animals arrived 
greater variety of costume and color ; even the 
trappings of the beasts were decorated. Will- 
ingly I quit the busy scene and sought repose 
in the house of David who had accompanied me 
during my walk. 

When making the journey from Berytus, I 
had enjoyed the sight of the caravans passing 
from the west. 



164 A Wanderer's Legend 

Before quitting Palmyra, one day I ascended 
to a wooded terrace to the west of the city near 
Zenobia's palace. Looking down and over the 
great city, its palaces and towers to the desert 
beyond in the east, I became interested in the 
curious Persian caravans arriving from the do- 
minions of Sapor ; they were unique in appear- 
ance, those descendants of Zoroaster. 

Of all the people I have met, they, though 
plainly attired, were the most peculiar type both 
in face, figure and costume. Such sights did for 
the moment relieve the tedium of my weary 
wandering life. Near me, on this hillside and 
on the plain beyond, I beheld the tower tombs, 
in which the Palmyrenes carefully deposited the 
ashes of their loved departed. 

Indeed some of them were palatial resting- 
places for the dead. . . . 

O with what risk does a statesman give his 
talents, his life, for the welfare of his sovereign ! 
When disaster arrives, as in the case of Zenobia, 
the tried one — the faithful counsel — the de- 
fender is blamed and censured — and so did the 
beautiful, the gracious, the charming Zenobia 



A Wanderer's Legend 165 

charge Longinus, the pure, the wise, the prudent, 

the devoted Longinus, yes, she rewarded him by 

unjustly charging him with having urged her to 

pursue the course that had resulted in disaster 

and in ruin. 

****** 

Years afterwards when witnessing other Ro- 
man invasions of peaceful realms, I remembered 
with painful regret how AureHan finally con- 
quered Palmyra, and after seizing Zenobia's 
treasures, imagined himself clement when he 
permitted that Queen to retire and live with the 
princes, her sons. Again in my miserable exist- 
ence, I had felt that in Palmyra I would dwell, 
yet the doom of Christ's edict hung over me ; I 
dared not stay. I was compelled to move on, 
and having gazed on that desert from the ter- 
race, I now found myself striding away over 
those eastern sands on my way to Persia, the 
land of Sapor." 



CHAPTER XXVII 

PERSIA 

" Now, your eminences, I propose to speak to 
you to-day of a people of the far East, who, in 
their country, knew less of your Church than al- 
most any of the inhabitants of Asia. 

Persia existed more than 2,000 years before 
the sad event which occurred in my unfortunate 
childhood, an event which has influenced my 
life to this day. 

- After China, Persia was perhaps the most 
ancient empire I have visited. In this sixteenth 
century your excellencies must know the saying 
* as old as the Medes and Persians.' 

It was in the first years of the second century, 

A. D., when first I traversed the realm of the 

Parthians ; yes, I remember it was in the tenth 

year of the second century, that I beheld the 

bartering for a throne ; and while I was there 

Pacorus II sold the Crown of Edessa to Abgar 

VII bar Izat. It was on that occasion that I 

placed these two copper coins in the little sack 

on my breast. These dumb tokens, records of 

that event, have not deserted me ; they at least 

have remained with me. 

166 



A Wanderer's Legend 167 

After the Persians had heard of Christ, and 
had learned something of Christianity, there 
arose a man called Manee, who founded a great 
rehgious sect, and created an ingenious system 
of religion, which for a while commanded the 
attention of Zoroastrians ; even Christians were 
attracted by the beautiful sentiments of his 
plausible religious system. 

In the third century, when, at Ctesiphon, hear- 
ing rumors of the approach of the Emperor 
Julian, with his army of about a hundred thou- 
sand men, I crossed the river Tigris, and passing 
along the northern bank of the canal, I met 
Julian's army on their way from the Euphrates. 
He had halted and was consulting with his staff 
officers, about the probability of crossing the 
Tigris. As I came near to them, I observed 
that brave Roman and warrior though he was, 
he and his men at arms were bowing before their 
mythical gods. 

So well was I, Ahasuerus, known in all these 
eastern nations, that his imperial highness rec- 
ognized me from afar, and immediately sent a 
subaltern to me requesting my attendance. 



l68 A Wanderer's Legend 

Knowing that I had just left Ctesiphon, he 
sought to gain from me all possible information 
in regard to the city, which he greatly desired to 
invest and conquer. 

Even at that moment his thoughts were on re- 
Hgion, for being sorely pressed he felt the need 
of divine assistance. 

Your excellencies, I have said divine aid, for 
he supposed in his bHndness, that divinity 
abided in the stocks and stones to which he and 
his hosts bowed down, and whom they implored 
for help. 

He felt they needed deHverance, for he per- 
ceived that he was being enclosed in a Persian 
net. He opened the subject to me by referring 
to that terrible decree of Jesus Christ, which ac- 
counted to him for finding me in this strange 
country, at this moment. 

He had never been sincere in his profession of 
respect for the doctrines of Christ. Even at that 
moment he was regretting ever having listened 
to the advocates of Christianity. 

In wishing me thus to advance the cause of 
paganism, he, Julian, really believed that if he 



A Wanderer's Legend 169 

could induce me to urge the people of Ctesiphon, 
to honor the gods of his pagan followers, those 
gods might favor his enterprise and grant him 
success. 

Julian addressing me said, ' Think of it, Ahas- 
uerus ; have I not always trusted in the gods of 
my childhood ? Have they not placed me on 
the chair of state? Can I continue to accept 
the new religion of Christ ? No ! Ahasuerus, I 
not only realize that I must adhere to the faith 
of my fathers, but I ask that you, in your wan- 
derings, may tell the nations of the power of my 
gods.' 

I could have told the nations not of the 
power, but of the utter hopelessness of the de- 
pendence on such myths. Although I had 
cruelly treated Christ, I had then lived through 
centuries in which I became convinced of his 
divinity, the power of his reHgion, and the fallacy 
of trusting in the images which were Julian's 
gods and trust. 

The emperor sought in vain to bombard and 
take Ctesiphon, and when he commenced the 
retreat of his vast army to the west and south, 



lyo A Wanderer's Legend 

Julian realized the Persian power ; he was har- 
assed and followed, until his death on the field 
at Samarah, finished the career of the apostate, 
gave lustre and spared dominions to Persia. 

Your eminences, I witnessed the colossal 
preparations the Romans had made, before they 
dared to proceed against Persia ; and when they 
did risk that invasion, they realized, when too 
late, that although they had mustered a great 
army, the Persian forces were invincible, and this 
was only a few years before Sapor died in 
380 A. D. 

And so, your reverences, there occurred inter- 
vals of peace, and again long series of struggles, 
war after war, and revolutions even in religion. 
Yet the sacred fire of the Zoroastrians continued 
to burn, and that beautiful emblem of fervent 
adoration, consoled that religious people, com- 
forting them during many generations, until the 
Mahometan hordes, not only colonized in Persia, 
but introduced and estabHshed their beHef in the 
prophet, and by degrees the nation bowed down 
to that holy man of Mecca. 

One of the most astonishing features in the 



A Wanderer's Legend 171 

faith of those Moslems was their utter uncon- 
cern, in the face of danger and death. That 
could be accounted for by the lesson taught 
them by their priests, that man never could ex- 
pect true happiness, until transported by death, he 
should rejoin the prophet in a land of perfect bliss. 

In time I moved from one realm to another, 
striving to comprehend the various forms of 
religion." 

Here the Moderator Theologian interrupted 
Ahasuerus, saying, " Our old friend, you cannot 
do better than to speak to us of the Persian 
religion." 

" Most honored prelate, I shall, with pleasure, 
answer you to the best of my ability. What 
shall I tell you ? How shall I explain to you 
that which has always proved inexplicable to 
my mind ? What I can tell you must suffice ; 
for while endeavoring to explain the doctrines 
of Zoroaster to myself, my intellect could never 
unravel its complications. While seeking to 
fathom and understand them, the deeper my 
investigation, the more and more I became em- 
barrassed with its consideration. 



172 A Wanderer's Legend 

Zoroaster had promulgated his doctrines fif- 
teen centuries before I came into his land, and 
among his followers, yet when I tarried among 
them at the time when they appeared again as a 
powerful religious sect, under the Sassanian rule, 
I saw that the principles inculcated by Zoroaster 
still pervaded the minds and hearts of all wor- 
shipers, which is even so to-day in this six- 
teenth century, a. d. 

They recognized two deities, one Ormuzd, 
who was typical of all that was good, pure, and 
true ; the other, Ahriman, symbolic of evil, un- 
cleanliness, falsehood, ruin. 

Naturally the sum of all prayers of good 
Parsees was, that Ormuzd might prevail, and 
that they might profit by his conquering power. 
They felt that the life of the inhabitants of this 
earth was one continual conflict ; those who 
preferred good contending ever with those who 
gave themselves up to the vitiating influences of 
Ahriman. 

Every religious man felt that the con- 
tending powers were striving to win his 
soul. The earnest efforts of good men was 



A Wanderer's Legend 173 

to secure the protection and blessing of 
Ormuzd. 

At your request, I am relating what I have 
seen. I remember that in 650 a. d., the Parsees, 
after persecutions, fled from Persia to India, 
finding protection there under the Rajah of 
Guzerat. They revered fire and the sun as em- 
blems of Ormuzd. 

It was believed that Zoroaster had brought 
the sacred fire down from heaven, and his fol- 
lowers have always kept it burning. In some 
temples the fire is guarded below the surface of 
the ground, and never allowed to be extin- 
guished. The priests of the Parsees attend the 
altars on which this sacred fire is kept. So 
sacred is this element which they worship that 
they do not employ it for cremation. They 
with conscientious scruples resort to other means 
of annihilating their dead, exposing the remains 
of their deceased loved ones to the voracious 
vultures, who quickly consume the mortal flesh. 

Many of their devotions consist of vocal 
music ; their ceremonies are often unique and 
impressive. 



174 A Wanderer's Legend 

I have seen the ceremony of purifying the 
youth, and the investment of them with the 
girdle of their faith. I noticed the women of 
the priestly class wearing bands which contained 
seventy-two threads. When they had fastened 
the cords on the neophytes, I would willingly 
have partaken of the spices and fruits, which 
were presented to those attending the reception 
of the youths, but I was recognized as a Jew, 
and they passed me by. However, the women 
resembled the daughters of our race. 

I saw them given in marriage. 

One day in each year is celebrated in honor 
of Yezdajird, who commenced to reign in Persia, 
in the year 632 of your calendar. 

I was at Teheran in 793 A. d. when the fete 
or birthday of Zoroaster was celebrated. The 
ceremonies were enlivened by the presentation 
of flowers and fruits. 

When their country became thickly populated, 
the Persians went forth to conquer and colonize 
in other countries ; they ruled with wisdom and 
moderation, as did Chosroes when he governed 
Egypt. Although I have shown you the better 



A Wanderer's Legend '175 

side of the Persian character, my sojourn in their 
interesting country was, at times, not without 
some annoying incidents. Once at Ecbatana I 
was looking on at a public ceremony, when 
crowds of excited people cried out at me, mock- 
ing my great gray beard, and my rude appareL 
They commenced to follow me ; a good Samar- 
itan, however, came to my relief, and speaking 
wisely to the throng, quieted their clamor ; after 
all, I have to remember the Persian people with 
gratitude. I confess to your reverences, I 
thought on that occasion how our people in Je- 
rusalem had treated your Saviour, and how un- 
relentingly we continued to mock Christ, even 
when good Rabbis counseled us to refrain. 
My presence here to-day with all these years on 
my head, is the penalty for the course my race 
pursued in those lamentable days. 

At the capital Ecbatana I moved among the 
most pious Persians ; there I frequently heard 
that sacred prayer, the Ahuno Vairyo. 

The Persians esteemed that prayer most 
sacred, because it contained twenty-one words. 

During the many centuries in which I visited 



176 A Wanderer's Legend 

Persia, I had opportunities of weighing the 
character of their rulers. 

Sapor I, whom I frequently encountered, and 
whom I could not really admire, hated Zenobia ; 
he could not forget that Odaenathus had stood 
between Persia and Rome. Sapor looked upon 
his captive, the Emperor Valerian, as his slave ; 
he treated Valerian with indignity before the 
people whenever he appeared in the streets of 
Ecbatana, 

One of the most remarkable and important 
events of that epoch was Sapor's victory over 
the Emperor Valerian, who was obliged to sur- 
render to the Persian army, and become a 
prisoner in his realm. Sapor was then known as 
Shapoorec ; that was his greatest military achieve- 
ment, when he drove Valerian into such an un- 
tenable position that he was forced to yield with 
his legion. 

Though generally supposed to be magnani- 
mous, Shapoorec treated Valerian during the re- 
mainder of his life, in a cowardly manner. After 
Valerian's death he contemptibly and cruelly re- 
moved the skin from the dead Emperor's body, 



A Wanderer's Legend 177 

and prepared it with the insatiable desire of 
guarding a souvenir of that victory. 

The capture of Valerian was sculptured in 
rock ; another colossal bas-relief represented the 
event in nearly one hundred figures. Ecbatana 
was indeed a grand city ; men slept there in 
security in those days within its seven walls, on 
which Sapor and his attendants were represented 
on horseback, while Valerian and the army at- 
tending him were represented on foot. Such 
was Ecbatana. 

The grandest architecture, however, that I saw 
in Persia, was of the Achmenian, in the City of 
Persepolis. 

During the reign of Sapor II the Emperor 
Julian, known as the Apostate, was encountered 
in battle and conquered. 

Julian was, in my opinion, a great and learned 
man ; he had been educated under the instruction 
of the wisest pagan, Greek and Roman scholars ; 
their mythology had been his creed from infancy ; 
he had for policy sake for a time accepted Christ 
as the divine representative of the ruler of the 
universe, but was more inclined to the re- 



lyS A Wanderer's Legend 

ligious belief of his childhood, family, and 
people. 

When we consider the justice and wisdom of 
his reign, we should respect his preference for 
the faith of his fathers. It has always seemed to 
me that the Persians ruled wisely, in that they 
permitted the government of countries conquered 
by them to continue in the royal hands as before 
their subjection ; only in return for Persia's 
supervision and protection they collected from 
them a tribute. 

Many of the rulers of these conquered nations 
were kings, and your reverences upon reflection 
will readily perceive why the parent Empire 
termed its ruler king of kings. 

I have said that the more I have studied the 
religion of the Persians the more I have been 
mystified. The legend which gives us the source 
of the Zendavesta is strange enough to cause 
your reverences to wonder that such a religion 
could have been accepted by a nation otherwise 
very intelligent ; that legend relates that 
Artaxerxes, when he once found himself politic- 
ally secure,. proceeded to strengthen the people 



A Wanderer's Legend 179 

in their respect for a belief in the national relig- 
ion. He therefore convened the wisest of the 
priesthood of the realm, and the most accredited 
soothsayers. 

Then they chose from their number those 
whom they believed to be the most learned, until 
after continued selections the number on whom 
they intended to entrust with the reUgious ad- 
ministration, was reduced. 

Again and again these numbers were dimin- 
ished until that number from many thousands 
became a very small company, and from that 
small committee one member was chosen to be 
set apart. That man of their final choice was a 
priest, Arda Viraf, and proved to be a powerful 
representative of their religion. It was related 
that Viraf, after ablutions fell into a deep and 
continued sleep, rendered more profound by cer- 
tain potions ; his repose was closely observed, 
and after many days he awoke, and related the 
very words which are now to be found in the 
books of the Zendavesta, of which, in fact, were 
preserved several copies in manuscript written 
by Viraf. 



l8o A Wanderer's Legend 

When I, Ahasuerus, was in Ecbatana, the lan- 
guage spoken by the Persians was principally 
Pehlevi. 

The Persian language was originally the 
Zend. 

Just as the French and English languages 
have received or suffered great modifications, so 
the Zend or Persian language changed and be- 
came modified ; and Pehlevi was adopted as the 
national language. 

So complete was the change in the language 
comprehended by the people that Artaxerxes 
caused the Zendavesta to be translated into 
Pehlevi. 

There was a feature under the government of 
Artaxerxes, which I think unfortunately re- 
sembled the power of your" Church in Rome. 
That sovereign connected the religious functions 
with those of the state. 

Of all the royal rulers I saw in the first four 
centuries, a. d., Artaxerxes seemed to me the 
wisest and the most competent. He anticipated 
the desire of your Church to be one with the 
national government, for he some time before 



A Wanderer's Legend i8l 

advocated and introduced the association of 
Church and state in Persia. 

Naturally the reHgion recognized then in his 
empire was that of Zoroaster. Yet he did not 
exceed the Christians in their autocracy, for, as 
your reverences must know, that although the 
early Christians were obdurate and intolerant in 
the manner in which they would not acknowl- 
edge the rights of man to adopt any religion 
than their own, yet in Persia every man was ex- 
pected to respect the sacred fire." 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

MAR SABA 

" In Speaking to you of this celebrated cloister, 
I will venture to express to your excellencies my 
opinion in regard to the propriety of a man 
retiring from active life among his fellowmen in 
this world. I have always been interested in 
those retreats known as monasteries. 

Permit the liberty I am taking, but in all 
things I am giving you my unbiased opinion in 
connection with my historical statements. I 
have particularly considered those institutions 
where indolent, mistaken men have sought to 
escape the temptations of a life spent in useful- 
ness among their fellowmen. 

I cannot believe that the Supreme Ruler of 

the Universe can approve that manner of life 

which is tolerated by your Church. If adopting 

such a life is a religious duty, and if in obedience 

1S2 



A Wanderer's Legend 183 

to conscience all men should retire from the busy 
world, I ask myself, how would it be possible for 
independent communities to subsist? 

However, during my wanderings, I have met 
and conversed with many sincere men who were 
celebrities of your Church. Among others Mar 
Saba. 

In the year 493, on returning from one of my 
voyages among the islands inhabited by the 
Northmen, I went south to Syria and visited that 
holy man's monastery, not far from Jerusalem. 
It was just ten years after the Monks had estab- 
lished themselves there. 

From century to century, on revisiting my 
native land, I have seen many competent breth- 
ren of the order assume power on that rock. I 
have also seen with what envious eyes the Mos- 
lems since their advent and occupation have re- 
garded that cloister. 

Notwithstanding my opinion which I have 
newly given to you, I envied at one time the 
tranquillity of those monks, and thinking perhaps 
to arrest my eternal wanderings, I offered also to 
become a recluse ; notwithstanding my Jewish 



184 A Wanderer's Legend 

descent, as you have long since perceived, I was 
convinced of the divinity of Christ. 

I approached the brotherhood at Mar Saba; 
they hstened to my plea, but in my physiognomy 
they discovered the inevitable mark of my an- 
cestors ; they recognized the IsraeHtish features 
of my race. Am I not branded, I thought to 
myself? In brief they denied my prayer, they 
pronounced my destiny to be just, and sent me 
hence to wander, and so I have never returned 
to Mar Saba." 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THEY SPOKE WITH MANY TONGUES 

Ahasuerus now paused for a moment as one 
of the prelates, rising, with outstretched arm, 
signified his desire to speak. He was a Bohe- 
mian priest speaking the Chech language from 
Prague, who prayed the Moderating Theologian 
to ask the old man how he was enabled to speak 
with so many people the world over. 

The Theologian complied with this request, 
asking the aged speaker whether he found 
everywhere men speaking Hebrew. Ahasuerus 
replied, " I may and will refer you for the infor- 
mation you have asked, to the Holy Bible, that 
book which should be sacred to you, and to all 
your sect. A compilation which has endured 
longer than most ancient documents, and which 
has been translated into almost all languages. 
See the words of St. Paul which you will find in 

the account rendered in the Acts of the Apostles 

185 



l86 A Wanderer's Legend 

of events in the life of the man I once scorned. 
There you may read : In the house where holy 
men were come together, that day there came 
from heaven beyond the stars, as in a storm of 
wind, a great sound, which appealed to all who 
were assembled ; they were impressed by appa- 
ritions, by cloven tongues as of fire, which 
hovered over them. They all felt the influence 
of a divine spirit, and soon they spoke with 
other tongues. 

When this news reached Jerusalem, righteous 
Jews of many nations came together and mar- 
veled, for all could understand what was said. 
For it seemed that each was spoken to in his 
own language. 

In their astonishment they said, ' Are not 
these men of Galilee and many countries un- 
known to us, yet do we not hear every rnan, 
speaking to us, as in the words we have been ac- 
customed to since childhood ! 

Though we are Elamites, Medes and Parthi- 
ans, men of Cappadocia, of Judea, of Mesopo- 
tamia, Phrygia, Pontus, Asia, and Pamphylia in 
Egypt ; Libya, Cyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews 



A Wanderer's Legend 187 

and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, yet we all 
learn of the wonderful works of God, from these 
strange men speaking our tongues.' 

Your request reminds me of an ancient event 
which occurred in that city bearing the name of 
' The Gate of the City of the Gods.' There, 
under Etanna, a man who professed to be di- 
vinely inspired, workmen were engaged in erect- 
ing a tower more than six hundred feet high. 
Again, centuries after, others strove to complete 
it, but as the artisans came from so many nations 
there arose a difficulty in carrying out the orders 
of the overseers of the work. This led to that 
oft repeated legend of the confusion of tongues ; 
yet having myself visited Babel, I have learned 
that just as I have been able to understand all 
the nations with whom I have had intercourse, 
so in time those workmen at that celebrated 
tower, were able to labor together ; but the en- 
terprise was too gigantic, and therefore the work 
on the ' Temple of the seven lights of the 
earth' was several times interrupted and really 
never completed. 

The power of easily acquiring languages is 



i88 A Wanderer's Legend 

generally believed to be a gift. Naturally the 
continued opportunities I have had through my 
long existence, have enabled me to acquire a 
sufficient knowledge of languages, to under- 
stand and speak with most of the people I have 
met in my wanderings. 

I have associated in these ages with people of 
so many countries that I no longer find any dif- 
ficulty in conversing with them. I grant you 
it is in a measure a pleasure ; perhaps you may 
envy me, yet I frankly assure you that I should 
rather have known only the language of my 
fathers, and profound is my regret, that cen- 
turies ago I could not have been consigned to 
that bourne, where in absolute silence I should 
have ceased to hear any voices. 

Knowledge is mine but no repose has been 
allotted to me. Now, your excellencies, I shall 
briefly report to you my impressions of that 
Oriental country, whose language is one of the 
most difficult, even for the natives themselves, 
to perfectly acquire, — China." 



CHAPTER XXX 

CHINA 

" Naturally the traditions of China, and 
perhaps its most important history, concern 
events which occurred long before the epochs in 
which I have wandered. Yet the • Book of 
Rites,' the Le Ke, though formulated twelve 
centuries before I was born, continued to be the 
guide of every Chinaman's life, when I walked 
over the celestial domains. You, interested in 
the propaganda of your faith, will care more to 
hear what has been done for a nation holding 
itself so aloof from the manners and customs of 
Western nations. 

In speaking to you of their religion and their 
ritual ceremonies, I will find difficulty in show- 
ing to you the difference between their objects 
of adoration, and those of whom we have 

always spoken of as pagans. 

189 



igo A Wanderer's Legend 

The idolatrous, grotesque figures made by 
them, and in which most of the people placed 
their trust, are entirely removed and different 
from the other great religion, wherein the Chinese 
through the teaching of Confucius, have other 
objects or temple ornaments, and their principal 
service is that of prayer to their ancestors, be- 
seeching them to intercede for them, in fact, 
they implore mediation from the members of 
their immediate families, who by death have 
gone before. 

In their gorgeous temples I found great dis- 
play, hideous figures, intense color, more gold, 
and less fervor, than in almost any houses of 
worship in other lands. 

Men passed by me in confusion, moved about 
among the grotesque images noisily, and with 
little evidence of a sense of worshipful propriety. 
Indeed, one might suppose that their bustle and 
hilarity was the form of adoration they had been 
taught to practice ; fire and stifling, spicy fumes, 
seemed to give to the atmosphere that consist- 
ency in which they were accustomed to revel, and 
which they inhaled for the benefit of their souls. 



A Wanderer's Legend 191 

When I passed through the Eastern Han dis- 
trict in the second century a. d., the provinces 
to the north of my route were visited by a viru- 
lent epidemic, which endured so persistently 
that I was not permitted to enter there. 

In those days there were a number of rulers, 
all of whom were so equally powerful, that for 
the benefit of all they agreed to divide up the 
power of the realm among them ; but in a short 
period dissensions and envious feelings caused 
each to claim that he alone was entitled to the 
entire empire, and they each sought to grasp the 
Imperial power. This through hundreds of 
years characterized the political career of all 
aspirants to Imperial authority. 

The Chinese never willingly gave strangers 
facilities to learn their difficult language, yet at 
the same time they acquired and understood the 
languages of all the merchantmen who came 
either over land or by sea to their shores. 

At first I knew their land as Serice, then I 
was received more courteously than in any other 
part of the habitable globe. I then found the 
people gentle, honorable, and in a sense civilized. 



192 A Wanderer's Legend 

They did at first speak reluctantly with me, 
the more so because I did not want to buy or 
traffic with them, for their raw or woven silks. 
My Syrian countrymen knew little of Serice or 
China, but naturally I made the acquaintance of 
the entire known world. 

When I was there in the thirteenth century 
China was known as Kitai, or Cathay ; then the 
Moguls began to rule throughout Southern 
China, and they knew it as ' All beneath the 
Sky.' 

After all, I have brought away with me such 
a souvenir of my visits in Chi-na, the land of 
Chin, that I have long since resolved that wher- 
ever I may meet a Mongolian, including, of 
course, the Chinese, I shall treat them most 
courteously." 



CHAPTER XXXI 

INDIA 

" Coming west through the peninsulas Siam, 
Burmah, the islands of Java, and Sumatra, I 
halted among millions of people, worshiping in 
the innocence of their hearts, the Creator and 
Ruler whom that great reformer, Buddha, had 
taught them to know and adore. And then 1 
walked the great peninsula of India. 

In India I encountered the strangest and most 
picturesque houses of worship of the world. 
While I strode from the tropics to the snow- 
topped Himalayas, in the temples of the Brah- 
mins, adorned with sculptures, with innumerable 
gods, chiseled, painted, gilded, and withal gro- 
tesque. Before my time the Brahmins did not 
object to the preaching of Buddha, so that Brah- 
mins and Buddhists fraternized. 

In the seventh century I found great antag- 
onism ; they were each seeking to obtain the 

193 



194 A Wanderer's Legend 

power, the adherence of the greatest number of 
disciples. In Cashmir I visited monasteries and 
certainly saw and conversed with thousands of 
Buddhist monks, or young disciples fitting them- 
selves for the work of the Church. Again in 
different parts of India during several centuries 
there existed varied contentions between the 
several religious denominations. 

I was there when the Greeks invaded India in 
the early part of the fourth century. 

In many provinces in India, natives would 
address me saying, ' Come, thou shalt bow down 
to our gods, they will save and bless you ! ' 
Among those Brahmins, those Hindus, each 
man repaired to his chosen corner or alcove in 
the temple, and heating his small ladle or spoon 
of oil, he poured it upon his head, bowed and 
knelt in prayer. The devotees were all intent 
on their sincere worship, and allowed me peace- 
fully to observe the myriad deities, many of 
them sculptured in the very rocks, and the won- 
derful fantastic ornamentation of their holy 
places. 

How strikingly it compared with the unpre- 



A Wanderer's Legend 195 

tentious religion of the followers of the Holy 
Man who bore the Cross, that the human race 
might be reconciled, and find rest near his divine 
Father. 

How great the contrast seemed as I stood 
among those men of India, and saw that they 
earnestly clung to the stone arms of those gro- 
tesque symbols of deity. In my wanderings I 
have sometimes asked, Shall not they, too, find 
rest ? or must they eternally suffer for their mis- 
placed faith? 

I was attracted by their tender attentions to 
all animals, and especially to those which their 
priests taught them, and which, through their 
faith, were allowed to wander stupidly and list- 
lessly over the very altars where their priests 
were intoning devotional aspirations, and often 
imploring for benefits they sadly needed. 

Strange that I, a Jew, an outcast, should have 
such thoughts as often took possession of my. 
mind before those pagan altars, when I wished 
that they might know of Christ, and India be 
blessed with the purity of your Saviour's faith." 



CHAPTER XXXII 

JAPAN 

** Your Excellency," Ahasuerus said, after 
walking through the nave of the assembly hall 
for a little diversion, " perhaps you or some hon- 
orable prelate may suggest a preference for some 
remarks on a province in Europe. I will gladly 
reply to any demand." 

A delegate immediately arose, and addressing 
the assembly stated that he, for his part, would 
prefer to hear of the far East, as the propaganda 
at Rome had suggested that he might be of 
service to the Church there. At the request of 
the Theologian, Ahasuerus complied, saying, 
•' In the early years of the sixth century, these 
aged legs again turned with me to the East, and 
at that time to the extreme East. 

Always inexplicable to me has been the im- 
pulse or power, that has sent me from one coun- 
try to another. 

196 



A Wanderer's Legend 197 

After my strange experiences with those 
pagans of the Indian peninsula, I bent my way 
thence through China and Corea, to a group of 
islands bearing the cognomen of Nippon, now 
known by you as Japan. 

As has always been my custom, I looked 
about me for some idea of the reHgion of that 
people. Legends and myths were given to me ; 
I found a system of so-called divinity which in 
the belief of the people of those islands, was 
shared in turn by heavenly mythological deities, 
of which the visible recognized head in their 
world, or empire, was the supreme ruler, or 
Mikado. Then came one of the advanced guards 
of Buddhism. That belief, that religion, was ta- 
king the firm hold in Japan that it had been los- 
ing in India. 

That young man who came to Japan with 
Buddha's message of love, was the Prince 
Shotoku Daishi, the son of the Emperor Yomei, 
of China. The prince had through some invis- 
ible divine power arrived with Buddha's impor- 
tant tidings, for the unsophisticated people of 
those islands who were only waiting for 



198 A Wanderer's Legend 

some divine being in whom to place their 
trust. 

Their original religion or beUef had been 
Shintoism. 

The people appeared to have had held up to 
them, the example of warriors, political, or cele- 
brated men of other days. These were kept 
before them as examples which they should fol- 
low, and whose spirits they should implore for 
aid and protection. 

The sum of what I saw in their so-called devo- 
tions, was the effort to secure all the pleasure 
possible in this life, and I understood that their 
mentors assured them that they would be 
wise in so doing, for soon age and decay and 
death would draw the curtain on all their 
joys. 

The race seemed to me to be a mixture of 
Malay, Chinese, and Corean. The more pecuHar 
and marked types were the little men I saw in 
the eastern and northern provinces. In the West 
I was evidently with the descendants of con- 
querors, and colonists from the western main- 
land. Those were the people who eagerly 



A Wanderer's Legend 199 

listened and laid hold on the attractive tenets of 
Buddhism. 

It was then about eighty years after the first 
Buddhist deities, or representations of incarna- 
tions of Buddha were carried into the country. 
It was not long before that religion was well 
established, and a majority of the people seemed 
to have accepted it. There were many devotees ; 
whether it was their reHgious conviction, or the 
amiable character of the race, they were gentle, 
kind, and honest. Their language was not so 
difficult to master, as was the Chinese or the 
Hungarian. A strange fact in regard to it was 
that, although written in almost the same charac- 
ters as Chinese, there is no absolute affinity with 
it or any other language. 

Once Japanese is acquired one may go over 
the entire country, and be understood in almost 
every province. 

Their ancient court was at Kioto, where the 
supreme authority and head of the church, the 
Mikado, lived. 

As a nation they were very clannish. Unfor- 
tunately in the eleventh and twelfth centuries 



200 A Wanderer's Legend 

the efforts of leaders of clans, who sought to secure 
high positions in the service of the Mikado for 
their friends and relations, through their intrigues 
led as in the history of every country to sangui- 
nary encounters and revolutions." 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

RUSSIA 

" I LEFT that nation of exclusive little men 
enjoying their primitive pleasures, crossed the 
narrow sea to the mainland. I strode through 
the ravines of Northern China, over the moun- 
tains of Eastern Asia, cHmbing the steppes, and 
passing through Siberia, directed my course to 
the more congenial climate of the shores of the 
Caspian Sea. 

Then for awhile found some exhilaration and 
divertisement in the Caucasian paradise of South- 
ern Russia. That vast empire caused me to 
walk great distances, for its domains to the 
north, to the south, the east, and the west, cover 
more than one-seventh of the habitable surface 
of this globe. 

There in my earlier migrations I saw evidences 
of races long ago extinct, even the dwelhng- 
places of prehistoric man, and ancient abandoned 

20I 



202 A Wanderer's Legend 

paved roads that had served (heaven knows 
when) from one dweUing-place to another. 

Naturally in cycles of time these roadways 
had been covered with the debris of ages ; here 
and there cropped out evidences of walls of de- 
fense, and various implements of stone, of that 
age when such tools only were known. 

The barren plains bore evidences everywhere 
of the migration of many races of mankind, some 
of whom had also employed bronze tools. Their 
long deserted mounds were evidently mortuary 
receptacles of hundreds of mixed races, who had 
all gone to partake of that repose denied to him 
who now addresses you, to him who had repulsed 
the Saviour of mankind. 

When first I traversed Russia, it was a barren 
waste with here and there a village, before the 
Scandanavian princes had occupied and devel- 
oped it. There were already many Jews in the 
settlements. I found the descendants of several 
families, whose ancestors had lived in Jerusalem 
near to my father's house. They did speak 
Hebrew fluently, having been born and educated 
in the country of their families' adoption. They 



A Wanderer's Legend 203 

only had such knowledge of their ancestors' 
national language, as was necessary for the serv- 
ice in the Synagogue. 

It seemed that all my race had wandered, for 
whatever land I visited, Jews had already pre- 
ceded me. They were not rovers as I have 
been, but wanderers they were, to the extent of 
migration. 

We are always recognized ; our Semitic origin 
is written on our brows. Many of our people in 
Russia had adopted costume which attracted 
every one's attention, particularly the red blouse 
of the men. 

Many of those Israelites in Russia were fond 
of music. I halted in villages in the Caucasus, 
and once in an auberge near the Black Sea, I 
saw and heard an aged blind man entrancing his 
hearers as he discoursed to them on his violin. 
All were wrapt in attention, some were moved 
to tears, some looked earnestly up, as though 
the enchantment was heaven-given. Others 
moved their fingers involuntarily, but silently, 
on their knees, as though they could not resist 
the desire to accompany the musician. Some 



204 A Wanderer's Legend 

leaned their elbows on their knees, and burying 
their foreheads in their hands, listened only to the 
strains of those chords which through the old 
man's skill appealed to their souls. 

One day I strayed into an open court of a 
Russian church, near the Caspian Sea. While 
without, I imagined that the deep tones of an 
organ were contributing their strains to the 
worship. On entering, I found it was the mel- 
ody of men's voices, who were intoning the Ht- 
any of their faith. 

I have not always been compelled to go on, 
or to continue my wanderings without regard to 
temperature or climate ; naturally I have at 
times been overtaken by severe cold, and deep 
snow, or have sweltered in intense heat. Gener- 
ally I have passed through most countries and 
continents, during their most favorable sea- 
sons. 

At times I have been relentlessly urged for- 
ward ; no continued period of rest has been ac- 
corded to me ; nor like some powerful animal, 
have I been permitted to enter into a long 
period of sleep with all my functions dormant, 



A Wanderer's Legend 205 

my tottering legs and frame being temporarily- 
shielded from wintry blasts. 

In equatorial regions occasionally I have failed 
to find shelter from the parching rays of a torrid 
sun. 

Men have shunned me, but obnoxious insects 
have again and again been my unwelcome com- 
panions. 

In all my wanderings, however, I have real- 
ized that man, by brave effort, can reconcile him- 
self to almost any trial, provided he has the 
power of concentrating his thoughts. 

Often as I descended the river Volga, my ears 
met with the cries of discontented sailors or 
boatmen, on the various craft that by day were 
continually passing the vessel on which I was 
descending the Volga ; I say by day, for what- 
ever lamps they had in Russia at that time, did 
not give sufficient light to enable them safely to 
proceed after sunset. 

At night we generally tied up at the river 
bank of some village, which enabled me to see 
the rude distractions of the inhabitants. 

I often have gained more intimate acquaint- 



2o6 A Wanderer's Legend 

ance with myself, by regarding the many strange 
people I have encountered in my wanderings- 
Many of them, both uncivilized and barbarous 
people, amused themselves by coarse abuse of 
one another, which fortunately was well under- 
stood by both parties and rarely led to any seri- 
ous conflict." 

Ahasuerus spoke thus earnestly for more than 
half an hour on Russia. Occasionally he ceased 
speaking for a few moments, and stood in a silent 
reflective mood. In fact at times he seemed to 
be moved almost to melancholy, by the recita- 
tion or recollection of some painful incident of 
his adventurous life. 

Especially when reminded of his almost im- 
mortality, he seemed again and again to be 
wrapped in the contemplation of the sad inci- 
dent, which led to his unceasingly paying the 
penalty. 

So absorbed was he at such moments, that the 
presence of .the assembly seemed to be ignored 
by him ; yet again he seemed to enjoy his remi- 
niscences, while addressing the conclave. He 
even assured the Moderating Theologian that 



A Wanderer's Legend 207 

this opportunity of speaking freely, had agree- 
ably broken the recent monotony of his exist- 
ence. 

When Ahasuerus was about to speak again, 
an aged attendant, a verger, who constantly sup- 
plied the prelates with pencils, paper and quills, 
or slim bamboos, with which they made their 
pens, passed through the audience and spoke in 
the ear of one of the prelates. The delegate 
thus spoken to now addressed the Theologian 
saying, " Your excellence, the aged attendant 
who has just communicated with me, has just 
made a good suggestion. He says that seventy 
years ago when he was living in Tri-este, an Ital- 
ian city on the Austrian side of the Adriatic 
sea, he saw this old man Ahasuerus, who then 
spoke with the verger's father, who was a car- 
penter. Then Ahasuerus informed him that his 
own father had followed the same occupation in 
Jerusalem in the first century, a. d. And that 
the old man had related at that time many inter- 
esting facts concerning Judea. May I presume 
to ask that our aged friend speak now to us on 
that land of Judea." 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

JUDEA 

AiFTER a few minutes' reflection Ahasuerus 
complied. 

" You know of my race as traders and money- 
lenders ; the force of circumstances I contend 
has made them so. 

In the first century, a. d., like the rest of my 
people, I was an outcast, a subject of hatred, 
but my erratic life spared me from much perse- 
cution. 

During some years under the Roman Empire, 
I dared not return to Jerusalem. I heard from 
friends coming from there, that where our 
fathers' altars had been raised to the living God, 
men then worshiped Jupiter, Juno, and many 
other mythological deities. 

Paganism had supplanted the Jewish worship 

of the true God. 

Though I have accustomed myself to my 

208 



A Wanderer's Legend 209 

cosmopolitan life, I experience now and then, 
that ever returning longing desire to bend my 
wandering feet towards my native Judea. I 
reach it time and again ; I stand upon its hills 
and view its cities. 

With strange feelings of inexpressible disap- 
pointment, I see ruined battlements, new pal- 
aces, towers I had not known before. I stand 
among the people on the route to Joppa, or 
meet those coming from Bethlehem, or those on 
their way to Nazareth. I look into their coun- 
tenances, yet can find not even a resemblance of 
those I knew in youth. 

I now will give you incidents of my earliest 
return to my native Judea. 

I went to Jerusalem ; I was delighted once 
more to visit the wonders of that magnificent 
temple of Solomon. At that time there was 
much commotion in Cesarea, between my people 
and the other inhabitants, touching who should 
have the precedence on public occasions. The 
Jews claimed to have that right, because, they 
said, that their kings had built the city ; the 
Syrians contended that they should be preferred, 



210 A Wanderer's Legend 

because it was their ancestors who had previ- 
ously built the towers of Straton, where after- 
wards Jerusalem was founded. There arose 
many dissensions, quarrels of words, and even 
blows with stones, this having occurred under 
the administration of FeHx ; the Emperor Nero 
at that time sent Fortius Festus to succeed and 
replace him in the government of Judea. 

When Festus arrived in Judea, he found it in 
a deplorable state ; rascals and thieves were pil- 
laging and destroying in every direction. 

An impostor who professed magic, induced 
many over-confident people to go with him into 
the desert, promising them to deliver them from 
all their ills ; Festus sent cavalry and infantry 
out after them and dispersed them. 

What interested me most shortly after that 
time, was the construction or addition of a great 
apartment at the gate of the Royal Palace of 
Jerusalem, which was a work of the Princes 
Asmoneens. As the place was of great eleva- 
tion the view was extremely beautiful, for from a 
balcony one had a view of the entire city, and 
Agrippa could see from his chamber all that was 



A Wanderer's Legend 2 1 1 

going on about the temple. The municipal 
rulers of Jerusalem were very dissatisfied with 
this, because the laws of my people did not per- 
mit others to see what was going on in the 
temple, and particularly when sacrifices were 
being made. 

To prevent this unwelcome inspection of the 
temple, they caused to be constructed on the 
west side of it, a wall so high that one could not 
see the chamber of the king, and rendering it 
impossible for him to see not only the interior 
of the temple, but also the galleries which were 
outside of it, on the side where the Roman 
soldiers were on guard for its protection. 

Agrippa was very much offended, and Festus 
was still more displeased. They endeavored to 
have the wall demolished ; they sent an embassy 
to Rome ; Nero heard them, and his wife Pop- 
pea, the empress, sympathizing with those of 
the temple, not only pardoned them for erecting 
the wall, but accorded them the right to re- 
tain it. 

Among the many great edifices I have seen 
in all this earth, nothing can compare with that 



212 A Wanderer's Legend 

shrine of my people's faith, Solomon's temple, 
as I recollect it when it stood on the hill in the 
great city of my fathers. 

Think that I who stand before you to-day, 
who speak with you, have assisted in that temple 
at Jerusalem. Its impressive ceremonies are 
vividly before my mind after all these years. 

When occasionally I enter your places of wor- 
ship, the display, the paraphernalia, the gHtter, 
the genuflections of your priests, all stand in 
great contrast with the simplicity of the temple 
worship of my earlier days, though even there I 
see vestiges of the ancient Jewish ceremonies. 

As in my boyhood we had our manuscripts, 
Hebrew and in Parthian, so you now have 
your missals, books of prayer written in Latin. 
We Israelites were compelled to leave our loved 
Jerusalem, quit our native land, and adopt other 
places of abode. It was the will of our Creator, 
just as at other times when cities have been too 
numerously populated. 

Families had become too large, the inhabitants 
so numerous that they were compelled to sepa- 
rate. Thus different races, speaking various 



A Wanderer's Legend 213 

languages, founded communities which have 
become the nations which populate the world at 
present. 

During ages while visiting all these people, I 
have heard of that being, who it is believed 
brought from far and wide, those monoliths for 
the Druids. 

I have also learned that he created dissensions 
in the world. As soon as the confusion of lan- 
guages had separated men into clans and na- 
tions, that wily old stone gatherer, that demon 
taught men ambition, envy, and hatred of one 
another, until war became a curse of men and 
communities. 

From the west and south my course brought 
me thus through my native Judea, though I 
found neither parents nor friends, nor any man 
who knew of me, for during a hundred years I 
had not ceased to walk ; therefore I felt more 
bitterly my chagrin at what seemed then to have 
lived so long. I often hesitated and avoided 
going again to Jerusalem, knowing that even 
there I would be a stranger. " I felt unlike those 
who in sacred history, are said not to have be- 



214 A Wanderer's Legend 

lieved in the efficacy of Jordan's stream, for 
though I had bathed in the Abana and the 
Pharpar, I hoped at one time, that in that sacred 
river Jordan, I might wash away the stain that 
had corroded my poor old frame. So I betook 
my way beyond Jericho and did bathe in the 
Jordan. 

I was refreshed with its cooling waters, yet 
pained and wearied by recollections when 
mounting the hills, I looked down on Jericho, 
where Judas Iscariot once lived ; incidents in his 
life then possessed my thoughts. 

As I have already promised your reverences, 
I will now proceed to give you an account of 
that man whose baseness contributed to the 
condemnation and final crucifixion of Christ, in 
consequence of which I have suffered these long 
ages." 



CHAPTER XXXV 

JUDAS ISCARIOT 

" Most Eminent Theologian, you will remem- 
ber the important incidents in my young Hfe, 
and I hope you will be interested in the bio- 
graphical sketch which I will now offer you, and 
which I think should be related before I con- 
clude this narrative of my itinerant career. 

The father of Judas was of the tribe of Reu- 
ben. He was born at a small village near the 
Dead Sea, but came to establish himself in an 
humble way at Jerusalem. He was a gardener, 
and carried on some trade in land and trees. 
When his wife was about to give birth to Judas, 
she dreamt that she would bring into the world 
an infant holding a crown in his hand. That he 
would cast that crown on the ground, and break 
it with his feet, that he probably would attack 
his father, and even deprive that parent of life, 
that he would go to the temple, and break up 
all the ornaments, carrying away whatever things 

were of value, and would then disappear. She 

215 



2i6 A Wanderer's Legend 

awoke very much alarmed at such a terrible 
revelation ; she recounted it to her husband, who 
went everywhere asking what it could signify. 
At last he found a wise man, who told him that 
he would have a son who would kill the king, 
and his own father, and would be possessed of 
such a passion for getting money that he would 
not hesitate at the commission of all imaginable 
crimes. 

When the father of the expected child heard 
this explanation he was very much grieved ; to 
avoid trouble and prevent such a misfortune, he 
and his wife resolved between themselves, that 
as soon as the child should be born, they would 
place it in a casket on the river, that the current 
might carry it away. 

Everything occurred as they had expected ; 
they gave the child the name of Judas ; when he 
was ten days old he was carried by his father to 
the river ; the casket containing Judas was driven 
by the winds to the island of Candia, 

The king of that island preceived the floating 
package on the water ; he sent attendants to see 
what it contained, 



A Wanderer's Legend 217 

On opening it they found a beautiful child, to 
whom they gave some refreshment to strengthen 
it, for having been without nourishment it was 
very weak. 

The king ordered that the child should be 
brought up in his household. When the infant 
attained the age of six years, they also called it 
Judas, because they observed by his garments 
that he was a Jew child. 

Judas was raised as a companion to the son of 
the king; the young prince was a year the 
senior of Judas. As they became older the 
prince noticed that Judas was taking money and 
things of value from him to such an extent that he 
was accustoming himself to steal. The young 
prince spoke to the king, his father, about it ; the 
king called Judas to him and had him immediately 
searched ; they found on him money, rings of 
great price, and some jewels which he had taken 
from the queen and the prince. On discovering 
this the king had him whipped, and then he said 
to him, ' Vou are not my son, as people may 
imagine from your position in my family ; you 
are a foundling whom we have saved from the 



2i8 A Wanderer's Legend 

water, and you have only been raised in the 
court out of charity.' 

Judas at these words was so enraged at heart, 
on finding that he was not what he had supposed 
himself to be, that he resolved to be revenged, 
because he imagined that the young prince was 
the cause of his misfortune. He watched his 
opportunity to settle with the prince. The 
occasion soon presented itself; going to walk in 
a Httle wood, he took a club and struck the 
prince a great blow on the head, and killed him ; 
having done that he concealed himself during 
three days and four nights. 

At last he took flight to the seashore, where 
he found a little vessel going to Egypt. After 
remaining there for some months, he returned 
afoot to Jerusalem. There he sought a new 
position for himself, and finally succeeded in 
securing a place in service near to a great lord ; 
being a Jew which he did not know himself 
until then, he was taught the laws of the Jews 
and the customs of Israel. 

He continued to be dishonest in the smallest 
matters. Some time afterwards his master sent 



A Wanderer's Legend 219 

him to buy some apples from a garden, directing 
him to a certain house ; this house proved to 
be that of his father, but he did not recognize it. 
As he was ahvays trying to gain money, b)^ 
whatever means possible, instead of going to the 
house as directed, he climbed the wall, and began 
to pick the apples. 

The man of the house who equally did not 
recognize his son, accidentally came into the 
garden, and finding the boy there said, ' Why, 
my boy, do you come and steal my apples?' 
And then the father, unknown to him, addressed 
him some words of reproach, upon which Judas 
became angry, caught him by the head, and 
struck him such a blow that he left him for dead 
under the tree. Then he gathered up the 
apples, and went unconcernedly away. 

The next day his mother came to complain to 
his master, that her husband was at death's door, 
from blows that the youth had given to him. 
Judas was then taken before a magistrate, and a 
very strange sentence pronounced upon him, in 
this wise, that in case of the death of the hus- 
band, Judas should marry the widow. 



220 A Wanderer's Legend 

The father soon died ; Judas was married to 
the widow, and received the name of Iscariot. 
Judas was about to Hve with this widow, whom 
the magistrate had forced him to marry, when 
undressing to retire at night, the widow, now his 
betrothed bride, perceived when he took off his 
stockings, that two of his toes were attached to 
one another. She uttered a cry, * O Lord, I see 
that my dream was too true, and that it has been 
accompUshed.' His ears also, Hke the ears of 
the child they had placed on the river, were 
close to his cheeks. 

The more this woman regarded Judas the 
more she found in his physiognomy that it was 
her son, and besides that, there were gray spots 
in the temples just as her son had had. Behold 
how Judas was recognized ! Discovering* the 
relationship he quit his wife, and strove to re- 
pent, and lead a better life. 

This was he who in manhood afterwards treason- 
ably sold the Saviour of Man for a price; and to 
whom I owe the continuance of my wandering 
existence." 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

BIRTHPLACE OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE 

" I WILL now give you more details of my 
early visits to my native land. After various 
changes in the government of my country, in 
one of my visits to Jerusalem, I walked to the 
various villages in the north, east and south. 1 
went to Bethlehem, and found it no longer the 
little hamlet I had known a hundred years be- 
fore. All the way, however, reminded me of an 
adventure in which I participated when a boy. 
I knew every turn in that road, as I had followed 
it on the eventful occasion which I will now re- 
late to you. 

I am returning now to my first recital of 
events in my childhood. I was about nine or 
ten years when I heard my father say to my 
mother that three kings had passed through 
Jerusalem, and that they were seeking to obtain 
information of the newly born king, Jesus, as 

221 



222 A Wanderer's Legend 

they wished to go and worship him. They said 
that until then nobody had been able to inform 
them where that birth had taken place. They 
had, however, learned that perhaps they might 
find that child in Bethlehem. 

Being curious to see these three kings, boy- 
like, I informed myself of the route or direction 
which they had been seen to take on leaving 
Jerusalem. Searching for them, I overtook them 
on the old road which conducted to Bethlehem, 
between the hills. I looked at all three ; one of 
them was a negro of middle stature, from Ethi- 
opia ; the other two were large and tall, one of 
them was older than the other ; as they had only 
quitted the city in the afternoon, they were over- 
taken by darkness ; however, there appeared a 
star which gave a light as brilliant as the moon, 
and seemed to be fully as large. 

Usually in my country after the setting of the 
sun, men seek repose. This night the rumor of 
the visiting dignitaries had preceded them, so 
that the party received greetings from shepherds 
passing the nights with their flocks in the neigh- 
boring fields ; herdsmen also brought their cattle 



A Wanderer's Legend 223 

nearer the public way, to see the cortege pass ; 
peasantry looked up from the fires, where they 
were heating the broth for those who were to 
guard during the night. They added their salu- 
tations to constant expressions of curiosity at 
seeing such a caravan. 

We went by a certain road which I afterwards 
could not find again, the light of that star hav- 
ing dazzled my eyes. I was all this time afoot, 
while the royal personages and their attendants 
were mounted on camels. 

After a while we perceived that the star 
seemed to stop over a small house ; the kings, 
having also noticed that phenomenon, dis- 
mounted from their camels, and entered into the 
building indicated. They were soon followed 
by their retinue, carrying presents. 

I supposed that I was going into a fine estab- 
lishment; having entered with the royal suite, I 
soon discovered that it was only a stable. Be- 
ing a boy, and too short to see over the shoul- 
ders of the men, and as they were crowded to- 
gether it was impossible for mc to see over them, 
so I stooped down and looking between their 



224 ^ Wanderer's Legend 

legs, I saw a beautiful young woman holding a 
little child on her lap. 

The three kings prostrated themselves on the 
earth before her, in the act of adoration. I did 
not long have the pleasure of seeing what oc- 
curred ; unfortunately for me, some one stepped 
with a coarse sandal on my hand ; it bled so 
freely that I was obliged to retire with much suf- 
fering ; though anxious to get out, I had diffi- 
culty in pushing through on account of the 
kings, and the number of their followers. For 
the same reason every bed in the town of Beth- 
lehem was occupied. As I could not see my 
way back to Jerusalem, I waited around the town 
until dawn of the day, when I returned to my 
father's house, and gave him an account of what 
I had seen. My father was very much surprised 
when I told him that the young woman whom I 
had seen holding the young child on her lap, 
was the wife of the carpenter, with whom he 
had worked on a certain house not long before. 
* O my God ! ' cried my father, ' that must be 
Joseph ! ' I replied to him, * I do not know any- 
thing more, father, only that I have seen you 



A Wanderer's Legend 225 

working together on the same building/ for so 
Joseph and my father gained their Uvehhood. 

And the child born in that stable became the 
man whom I refused to help, whose simple plea 
I rejected." 



CHAPTER XXXVII ; 

AMERICA, MEXICO 

" Centuries after that visit to Judea, I strolled 
through the islands of the yEgean Sea. Again 
through Byzantion, afterwards in Wallachia, visit- 
ing its capital Cimpulungu, listening to the pe- 
culiar music of the stringed instruments of those 
half-civilized people. Then at the city of Argish, 
and visiting the peasantry in towns of Moldavia 
and Carpathia. Thence along the frontier on the 
seacoast of Turkey in Asia. 

From the Black Sea I ascended the river 
Danube ; passing its perilous rocks I continued 
my journey, crossing the entire continent of 
Europe, in time to arrive in Spain, when Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella were Hstening, with willing 
ear, to that great mariner whom all other sover- 
eigns thought to be a dreamer. 

So have I found that men often lack confi- 
dence in the most important theories of great 

226 



A Wanderer's Legend 227 

men, simply because they have not the intellect 
to appreciate their value." 

The Theologian here interrupted the aged 
speaker, asking him, " Whence come you now, 
my much traveled friend ? " Ahasuerus replied, 
" It may surprise your reverences, but I have re- 
cently come from that newly-discovered world 
of red men. 

A little more than thirty years ago, in the last 
decade of the fifteenth century, Christopher 
Columbus made known in Europe the important 
problem he had conceived in regard to the ex- 
istence of a land beyond the seas. 

Fortunately he found patrons in Spain, and 
at that time they were the best rulers that coun- 
try had ever known. 

The administration of Ferdinand and Isabella 
was an honest government ; there was no dis- 
simulation ; every act was really in the interests 
of the people, intended to bind together those 
elements which had almost been severed, by the 
errors of previous rulers. The nation was thus 
enabled to act harmoniously as one famil}', in- 
stead of being disintegrated by civil conflicts. 



228 A Wanderer's Legend 

The example of the private character of those 
monarchs was a blessing, and a profitable lesson 
for the Spanish people, who with great respect 
for Ferdinand and Isabella, awoke to a course of 
proper ambition and progress, contrasting favor- 
ably with the condition of the nation under many 
predecessors. 

Ferdinand was robust, and had by temperate 
Hfe, preserved his health. When I heard him 
speak before the Cortes, I was impressed by the 
harmony and power of his royal voice. The 
beautiful feature in his regal administration was 
that he and the queen were in accord. Isabella 
had the wisdom to endear herself both to her 
noble subjects, and to find an "honored place in 
the hearts of her people. 

When she spoke the Castilian language the 
ears of all educated Spaniards were enchanted. 
They had then reason to be delighted and 
proud, on account of the great discoveries of 
Columbus. 

At the time of my visit Columbus had already 
been fortunate in his enterprise, having made 
two successful voyages, thanks to Ferdinand and 



A Wanderer's Legend 229 

Isabella. I had been continually inspired with 
the desire to visit that new world. This was 
difficult for me to accomplish, as Columbus by 
this time found more volunteers than before his 
success. 

On arriving in Spain, I heard again and 
everywhere, on every tongue, of that courageous 



navigator. 



With alacrity I approached Columbus and 
offered my services for another voyage. On 
giving evidence of my powers of endurance, 
and knowledge of all other countries, I showed 
him my sinewy arms ; he noticed my steady 
head, and finally engaged me as a member of 
his third expedition for which he had already 
accepted about fifty mariners. 

With those early adventurers I also trod the 
Western islands, and the Columbian continent. 

Meeting with strange sights on every hand, 
among the redskins with painted bodies and 
faces, and heads decorated with highly colored 
feathers and bright shells. Here again the evi- 
dence that man wherever we find him, is inclined 
to adopt some form of worship, and if it be not 



230 A Wanderer's Legend 

to an unseen god, that divine spirit is supplied 
by images carved in wood or stone. 

Before such deities those savages on the 
islands and the mainland, bowed daily down. 
At other times they joined hands and danced 
about rude stone altars, from whose embers 
sparks of fire rose to the invisible power, with 
the exultant cries and prayers of those aborigines 
of that new found land. 

When I entered Mexico, it was to me a land 
of wonder and delight. The lowlands ever 
pleased me, but the charm came when inland I 
mounted from terrace to terrace, and gained 
height after height. 

At Tenochtitlan, and before Cholula, where I 
stood in the temple of Quetzalcoatl, in the beauti- 
ful gardens of Iztapalapan, I took in the grand 
view of Mexico. On other days my eyes feasted 
on the sumptuous palace of Montezuma, on the 
heights Chapultepec which also commanded a 
grand view. 

When I stood in the capital of their sovereign 
ruler, I beheld edifices indicating a civilization 
even grander than Palmyra, and as I went among 



A Wanderer's Legend 231 

the Mexican people seeing their great monu- 
ments, it seemed that man had appropriated 
every eminence, and built defenses commanding 
a view of every approach to the seat of govern- 
ment, on whose palaces and temples the glorious 
sun, that had yesterday lighted Jerusalem, 
shone now in all its effulgence on these edifices 
of the ancient Aztecs. 

Some years before this, my visit to Mexico, a 
great military expedition under Axayacatl had 
been made to procure victims for the altars of 
the principal cities under the rule of Monte- 
zuma. 

I saw a wonderful procession of priests when I 
attended one of these great festivals. It was a 
ceremony which they told me occurred twice in 
a century ; it was the festival at the close of a 
period of fifty-two years. 

It was near the last days of the year, when 
the sun daily shortened its visits. The people 
had, during generations, been accustomed to 
meet together at such a time, to await the new 
days as they commenced to lengthen. Every- 
thing was put in order, or as the men esteemed 



232 A Wanderer's Legend 

it, in disorder, in their houses ; their crockery was 
destroyed to make way for new dishes, their 
garments, and even their household deities were 
relegcited to the past. Then came the day for 
the ceremony at which I was present. The 
priests, dressed as gods, even ceased to keep 
burning the holy fires in the temple that they 
also might be renewed ; and leaving the city, 
ascended to a terrace on a mountain, bringing 
with them a captive whom they tortured and 
sacrificed with fire. 

When the appearance in the sky of certain 
stars rendered the sacrifice most auspicious, they 
laid the victim out on a stone slab of jasper, and 
kindled on his naked breast a fire of cedar, 
withes, and fagots. It was the fire of the new 
era; slowly the fearful element consumed the 
poor victim. 

This ceremony, terrible as it appeared to me, 
delighted the multitude ; their countenances 
brightened with the light of the flames, and 
their voices announced their joy to the 
heavens ! 

As J, passed through the country, I found 



A Wanderer's Legend 233 

many tribes rejoicing in that brutal festival which 
opened up to them new years of hope. 

Many times I looked at their war-god, Huit- 
zilopochtH. I crossed the water of Anahuac. I 
mounted to their great city Tenochtitlan ; pass- 
ing on the lake Tescuco, I found great evidences 
of earlier and present civiHzation, the archi- 
tecture, their buildings, and what surprised me 
most, their thorough administration of justice. 

Their sculptured stones sometimes of polished 
onyx, and of jasper, were remarkable types of 
primitive art. 

I leave to the imagination of your excellencies, 
how much I was impressed on seeing in that 
hitherto unknown world, such a vast and enter- 
prising population. I stopped to wonder how 
these people had established themselves on that 
to us, new continent, without our ever having 
dreamed of their existence. Finding I was losing 
myself in thought, I looked out silently on the 
great monuments, on the plains below me, and 
accepted all those marvels without longer de- 
manding whence they originated. 

True, some of the tribes of my scattered race 



234 A Wanderer's Legend 

have been unaccounted for ; I therefore sought 
for Israelites. I detected their features occasion- 
ally, but not a trace of the religion of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob." 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

CENTRAL AMERICA AND PERU 

" On peninsulas, through a narrow belt of land 
lying between two great oceans, with here and 
there a village, and again a town from whose 
battlements I could look down upon the sea, 
thus I went through lands since known as Guat- 
emala and Yucatan. 

In this connecting link of the great western 
hemisphere, I viewed already cities in ruin, en- 
deavored to decipher the rudely cut hieroglyphic 
records of more ancient people, more evidence 
of an earlier and wonderful civilization. 

Your reverence has asked me, how I could 
converse with and understand all the various 
people whom I have visited. I must confess 
that reaching this point on the new continent, I 
found the language of the aborigines almost in- 
comprehensible to me. Yet my knowledge of 
so many idioms enabled mc to pursue my way. 

235 



236 A Wanderer's Legend 

I heard words, and I saw manners and cus- 
toms, that reminded me of Eastern Asia. I 
found they had strange traditions recorded in 
picture text; one remarkable symbolic Aztec 
tradition reminded me of those legendary trees 
grown from the bitter apple seeds placed under 
Adam's tongue, from the wood of which that 
Cross was hewn. 

Here the Aztecs had chiseled representations 
of four trees, with a strange legendary history, 
they having from all time indicated the points of 
the compass. 

On each tree there was a single bird, one look- 
ing to the north, another to the south, one look- 
ing to the east, and a fourth indicating the 
west. 

I traversed the peaceful lands of the race of 
Incas, visiting their habitations ; there I found 
an interesting people, and remains of a great na- 
tion resembling in many ways the ancient Egyp- 
tians ; especially did I see evidences of the simi- 
larity of the objects unearthed by inundations 
from the mountain torrents ; in many shat- 
tered tombs sitting mummies were disclosed, 



A Wanderer's Legend 237 

rudely ornamented earthenware, and inscribed 
stones. 

I saw Cyclopean ruins of enormous buildings 
at Tiahuanaco, near a great lake. I was there 
two years ago when Pizarro moved on to the 
seacoast on the west. During a long period 
throughout that interesting South American 
country, the Incas performed religious services, 
in which they followed strictly the forms pre- 
scribed in their manuscripts of rites. They wor- 
shiped the sun, the moon, the rainbow, and the 
evening star; naturally they made their obei- 
sance daily before the sun, when it favored them 
with its effulgent rays. They knew of a supreme 
deity Pachacamac, to whom they only reared 
one temple in all the realm, in a valley near the 
Pacific coast. 

Multitudes of pilgrims gathered there in an- 
cient times, and during three days knelt in ear- 
nest devotion. 

Temples to their chief deity, the sun, were, 
however, to be seen whercx'cr I wandered. The 
idea was beautiful, that wherever the orb of day 
bestowed his brilliant rays, they believed that it 



238 A Wanderer's Legend 

was due to his august godship, that a temple 
should raise its spiral tower in honor of the sun, 
the glory and the beauty of the day. Their as- 
pirations, their prayers, were equally addressed 
to the moon, whom they esteemed as the sister 
and wife of the greater source of light. 

Their festivals were very imposing ; those ad- 
venturous travelers whom I encountered, and 
who had made the voyage with Columbus, spoke 
of the religion of the Aztecs, whom they had 
seen, as of a higher order than that of any other 
forms of worship practiced on this Western 
hemisphere. 

The Inca was not only the ruHng temporal 
power governing those people ; he was esteemed 
by them as the representative of the adored sun. 
He was their spiritual ruler, and as such was be- 
lieved to receive his inspiration from the sun ; 
his decrees were even supposed to emanate from 
that brilliant source. 

His race and family were revered as sacred, 
although they certainly lived polygamous lives. 
All the people, noble or plebeian, adored them. 
Their temples in Cuzco were raised in honor of 



A Wanderer's Legend 239 

their deities ; their temple of the sun was re- 
splendent with golden slabs ; unlike the altars in 
Mexico, those Peruvian sacred halls were never 
tarnished with the taint of human blood; such 
brutal sacrifices were even strictly forbidden by 
the Incas. 

The Peruvian art objects frequently lying 
exposed in the debris of more ancient ruins, re- 
minded me of many things I had seen in the 
land of the Pharaohs. 

I also admired their cunningly made deities in 
gold and silver; judging from all the religious 
objects I saw, they evidently had never heard of 
your Christ. Just now those who have accom- 
panied Pizarro, have announced the tidings to them. 

From what I saw among those who have pro- 
fessed the new religion of your Church, I confess 
to you that when I compared their conduct with 
the life of those who held on to the religion of 
their fathers, I asked myself would it not, per- 
haps, have been better, could they ha\'e remained 
uninformed. 

There were two orders of nobility in Peru. 
The Incas were proud of their descent from their 



240 A Wanderer's Legend 

sovereign ancestors. As they lived in polygamy, 
they had numerous offspring, the most of whom 
counted upon favors from the ruling power. 
The males were recognized only, they alone re- 
ceived appointments in the priesthood; they 
wore a peculiar dress, and were very exclusive ; 
they partook of the royal repasts, and were 
almost exempt from punishment, in fact they 
were esteemed incapable of doing serious wrong. 

Throughout the country were ancient battle- 
fields ; war had evidently been resorted to both 
by acts of aggression and defense. On many of 
these fields, and at every village, temples of your 
faith constructed of adobe, bore the emblem of 
the cross. Yet it was a question to my mind 
whether your emissaries were a blessing to those 
people." 

The Theologian here interrupted the old man, 
saying, " Noticing the sentiments you have twice 
recently expressed, permit me to ask you, was 
not that a noble work? Were not those holy 
men earnest and brave?" 

Ahasuerus reflected for an instant and then 
replied, " Your eminence, naturally from your 



A Wanderer's Legend 241 

point of view, with your sectarian prejudices it 
seems so to you. You see, and have known 
ah-eady before I have spoken to you, that by the 
power of mihtary arms, your propagandists have 
forced those innocent people of Peru to turn 
their backs on the rehgion of their ancestors, 
and to accept your faith and rites. Would you 
have my unbiased opinion, I must say your 
emissaries are brave, yet inspired by an un- 
warranted zeal, again and again that same error 
of unwise narrowness, not realizing that the relig- 
ion of our neighbors should be considered and 
respected. 

Your excellencies, I can hardy understand 
that I, a poor Israelite shoemaker, the son of a 
carpenter, have lived so long, and that such op- 
portunities have been afforded me to learn and 
to know this earth. 

I have hved to see the emissaries of the 
Church, the dispensers of your faith throughout 
the civilized world, that faith of that divine man 
whom I repulsed. 

Some have attributed my long life to the 
ancient belief that there existed a fountain at 



242 A Wanderer's Legend 

which if one drank three times, he should see 
many many days, and that when such a man 
attained a hundred years, and continued drinking 
from that fountain, he should live a thousand 
years and by continuing his visits to that source 
there should be no limit to his existence on 
earth. No, your reverence, I have never drank 
of that fountain, rather would I have taken a 
portion from a death-giving spring. 

Perhaps I have satisfied you with my long 
narrative; its recital has brought to my mind 
this legend of the fountain. It occurs to me 
occasionally, when I realize the time it has taken 
me to see, and to form some idea of this wide world. 

>ii 'Ic :^ * :ic ;> 

^Tr- ^Tr ^y* ^ ^t* 

^ * * * 



A Wanderer's Legend 243 

;|j ^ >{t 5JS 

>fc ^ :•'- * * 

5}C 'h >H ^ ^ * 

Your excellencies, my story is told, it is yours ; 
I must resume my wanderings, I must leave 
you. The day is spent ; a veil of mist will now 
descend as a curtain between you and Ahasuerus, 
leaving you to wonder that I have remembered 
so little of the great round earth. That I have 
recorded so few of the important events that 
have been inscribed on its milestones." ^ 



^ Ahasuerus is known to have appeared afterwards at Brussels 
in Brabant in 1774. 



JUL2 9 190* 



-9 1902 



AU'a. 



1902 
1902 



